


Best Shot

by AccioMjolnir



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Double Agent Draco, F/M, Flashbacks, Fred Weasley Lives, Friendship is Magic, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Time Travel, Time Turner (Harry Potter), Torture Flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29218479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioMjolnir/pseuds/AccioMjolnir
Summary: It's eighth year and Hermione is trying to navigate her post-war friendship with Draco Malfoy and a relationship with Ron Weasley when she gets an unexpected visit from someone who knows her better than anyone: herself. Thrown back from the future, an older Hermione drops a bombshell on her: she has only three days to set things right, or Draco dies.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 34
Kudos: 266
Collections: Best of best, Dramione Fics That Live In My Head Rent Free, The Dramione Collection, literally god tier fan fics I cannot live without





	Best Shot

Hermione, Harry, Neville, and Ron wandered into the eighth year corridor a little louder than they might have any other day. The Halloween feast had been a delightful affair, and then afterward they’d joined in at Gryffindor Tower to continue the festivities. Seamus Finnegan had produced two bottles of firewhiskey. Things had escalated. Now they were headed to bed at the end of the night draped over each other, singing Weasley Is Our King like it was fifth year.

“Will the four of you _please_ shut up,” came a drawling voice from behind them. Draco Malfoy had emerged from his room along the corridor with a deep frown on his face. Everyone turned, and Hermione shrugged Ron’s arm off her shoulders and stepped toward him. 

“Jealous we had so much fun without you, Malfoy?” she asked, and he shook his head, looking down at her as she came very close. She swayed on her feet and looked up at him. Very quietly, as if speaking to herself, she said, “When did you get so tall?”

“You’re drunk,” he said. Then, he glanced up at the others. “You’re _all_ drunk. Drinking your troubles away, are you?”

“It’s called fun,” Harry offered with a cheeky grin. “You might try it sometime.”

“Invitation must have gotten lost on its way,” Draco muttered. He put his hands on Hermione’s shoulders and turned her around. She gave a little sound of protest as he gave her a gentle push back toward the others. “Some of us would like to get some rest, you know. Keep it down, would you?”

“Spoilsport,” Hermione muttered, staggering her way back to a scowling Ron. He draped a possessive arm over her shoulders and then, glaring at Draco, kissed her on the temple. Draco sneered, and Hermione locked eyes with him just for a moment before he turned and disappeared into his room. Her head was starting to throb. She shouldn’t have had so much firewhiskey.

“Git,” Ron muttered, and Hermione shook her head. They kept walking toward the end of the corridor, where they each had their own room off the circular tower on the corner. All the returning eighth years had been given their own quarters along this long hall; Slytherins and Gryffindors on the east end, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws on the west. Hermione had the singular pleasure of having the room at the very end, which had a beautiful stained-glass window.

“He’s harmless,” she said.

“He’s _not_ ,” Ron protested, and Harry sighed wearily at them, whacking Ron on the arm around her shoulder.

“No one wants to hear you two have this fight for the four millionth bloody time,” he said, and Hermione sniffed irritably. From Harry’s other side, Neville made a general sound of agreement.

“I don’t know what else you expect him to do,” she said, ignoring Harry and Neville and opting instead to pick the fight with Ron. “He risked more than anyone to join the Order. You still treat him like he’s—”

“A Death Eater? ‘Cause he is,” Ron protested. Hermione scoffed. Harry groaned and peeled off to his own room. Neville quietly did the same, rubbing at his face.

“He was a double agent!” Hermione ducked out of under his arm and moved away. “He saved our skins more than once, Ron, how many times does he have to prove himself?“

“He’s got a Dark Mark, ‘Mione!”

She tipped her head back and rolled her eyes, dropping her voice derisively. Behind her, Harry and Neville’s doors closed, leaving them alone in the hall. “You know perfectly well he didn’t want that mark. And he’s been acquitted, anyway.“

“Why are you so bloody _nice_ to him, ‘Mione? It’s like he’s put some kind of spell on you.”

“It’s called giving him a second chance, something you’ve never bothered trying!” she spat at him. 

“It’s called having a _thing_ for him, more like,” Ron growled jealously. Hermione threw her hands up and turned toward her door. She grumbled with frustration. Now she had a splitting headache.

“I’m not listening to this anymore. I’m going to bed,” Hermione said, stumbling. He frowned.

“Oi! ‘Mione!” he kept close and leaned on the frame of her door as she fumbled for her wand to unlock it. Bouncing once with aggravation, he sighed and urged her, “Come on, not this _again_.”

“Yes, this again,” she said. “You keep refusing to acknowledge it, but I actually consider him a friend, Ron. Would you let someone talk to you about me like that all the time?”

“You’re my girlfriend, that’s not the same.”

“Okay, Harry then. You know what I mean,” she said irritably, and she got her door opened and stepped in, not opening it enough to give him the opportunity to follow. She glowered at him one last time and said flatly, “Goodnight, Ronald.”

“Bloody hell, ‘Mione, wait—” he started, and she shut the door in his face. Her head was pounding now, more than she would have expected even drunk, and she just stripped down to her knickers, walked across the room to her bed, and fell asleep.

***

_“Granger,” Draco was panting, having genuinely run after her at a breakneck sprint. He’d finally caught up, grabbing her by a wrist and pulling her back toward him. He pressed her against the closest tree, using his body to pin her other arm between them. He wrenched her wand out of her hand, tucking it into his pocket. Her heart pounded in her chest. Fear coursed through her entire body._

_She was caught. Alone. By a Death Eater. Malfoy could summon the dark lord with a single touch and he had her alone in the woods, pinned between himself and a tree—_

_“Granger, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and she let out a panicky, hysterical laugh._

_“Am I supposed to believe that?”_

_“Yeah, you are,” he said, and though he kept a tight grip on her, he let his head drop as he caught his breath. “Merlin, you’re fast.”_

_“I have to be,” she breathed. “Your side has werewolves.”_

_“Fair enough.”_

_“Why should I trust you?” she asked. He looked back into her eyes, and something about the way he looked at her pulled at her heartstrings. He looked weary. He looked worried._

_He looked sincere._

_“I need you to trust me,” he said. His grey eyes were locked on hers, his face inches from hers, and he took a breath and told her the truth. “Because I want out, and I think you’re my best shot.”_

***

She woke up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, and her head throbbing, racing with a chaotic jumble of images. Sitting up in bed, she tried to make sense of it all. She’d dreamed of a full life: working in the Ministry, traveling parts of the world she’d never seen before, and being a mother to two beautiful, gregarious teens. 

She’d dreamed a lifetime of being the wife and widow of Draco Malfoy. 

She could see him in her mind’s eye now, grey eyes open and unblinking as she shook him relentlessly to try and revive him, and the emotion that came with the image was so overwhelming she could barely breathe. It confused and terrified her. She’d never dreamed something so vividly in her life. It felt so, so real.

She must have had way more to drink than she realized.

Her head was slamming now. She put a palm to her right eye and pressed, as if it would do anything. 

“Don’t scream,” came a voice from her left. She nearly fell out of the bed. 

“Who—how-—”

“I know this is bizarre,” said the voice, and Hermione blinked. It was recognizable, and yet not at all. Her mind seemed not to want to register it fully. She couldn’t understand. Then, the voice said, “ _Lumos_.”

 _Then_ Hermione screamed. She choked it back quickly, but she had definitely screamed.

“I said _not_ to scream,” said the voice, with a bit of exasperation. Hermione rubbed at her face and blinked back at the face on the other side of the wand. Her own face. She was staring at herself. 

“How?” she asked, and the other Hermione pulled a large, silver Time-Turner from her shirt. Hermione blinked. It was different from the one she’d been given in third year. She shook her head and frowned.

“I don’t have a lot of time here. I’ve got about three days before my being here makes things too volatile,” she said. “So let me give you the short version. I’m you. I’m forty-five years old. A week ago, my husband was killed in an accident. I’ve tried short-term adjustments already and nothing works, he has died every time. I’ve determined I have to keep the sequence of events from ever beginning in the first place to be sure, and I’m almost certain the key is changing this year at Hogwarts.” 

“How am I supposed to— _ugh_ ,” Hermione groaned, her head absolutely splitting now. Her stomach was sour from the firewhiskey, and her mouth was dry. This hangover was the worst one she’d ever had in her life. “I don’t even think I had that much to drink.”

“What do you mean?” 

“My head is _pounding_ ,” Hermione said. Her head was still serving up image after image from her dreams, and she frowned. It wasn’t making sense. Her dreams had never continued so vividly after she woke; on the contrary, they usually faded fairly quickly. This wasn’t making sense. “We had firewhiskey tonight. I had this dream--”

“What dream?” her older self asked. “Tell me.”

“I was married to Malfoy. It was such a bizarre dream, just a normal life with a house and two kids, until he died,” she said, groaning again as her head thrummed violently, images of Draco Malfoy playing with children forcing themselves to the front of her mind. “Except it keeps _coming_ , and I’m awake, or at least I think I am--”

“ _Merlin’s beard_ ,” the older Hermione said, her eyes widening. “Well, we shouldn’t be this close together, first of all, but there’s really not much we can do about that at this moment. Secondly, I think I bloody well cocked up. You can probably see my memories because I touched you to wake you.”

“Your _memories_?” Hermione suddenly stopped pressing at her face with her palm and looked up, staring at her older self. “These are your _memories_?”

“It certainly sounds like it.”

“Why would that—”

“Well, because you’re me, aren’t you? I must have connected us when I touched you and now I imagine your mind is just catching up to where mine is. I do hope it isn’t painful. Oh, Merlin, I should have considered that first.”

“Malfoy?”

“Draco, yes,” the older Hermione said. “He’s the love of my life.”

“Forgive me if that’s a little hard to believe,” Hermione muttered. 

“Why? You’re friends by now, aren’t you? I distinctly recall having a near-daily argument with Ron Weasley about exactly that,” she frowned. Pursing her lips, she asked, “Wait, this _is_ eighth year, isn’t it?”

Hermione nodded. “It is.”

“What day is it?”

“What?”

“What _day_ is it? I turned back to this year but I couldn’t be so precise as to pick a specific day.”

“It’s Halloween,” Hermione muttered. “After the feast.”

“Oh good, you haven’t shagged Ron yet. I wouldn’t, if I were you. Which I am,” she said. Then, a little more quietly, “This is a bit more unusual than I expected.” 

“Quite.”

“Ron’s a good person, he just isn’t what you need,” her doppelgänger said. Hermione was reeling. Her skull felt as if it was about to explode, her mind was absolutely flooded with memories and emotions that belonged to the other Hermione, and now the older version of her was opining on her love life. 

Hermione squinted at her older self. She’d just said out loud something that Hermione had been mulling over in her mind ever since Ron had asked her to be his girlfriend. She chewed on her lip for a moment and then said, “Let me figure Ron out for myself, please.”

“You’re just wasting your energy with him,” she sighed. 

“I _said_ let me figure it out for myself,” she snapped.

“Suit yourself,” the older Hermione said, and her tone was actually, openly derisive. Her opinions on this particular matter were extremely clear. Hermione scowled.

“I’m going mad,” she decided. “I’ve completely lost it.”

“You have not. And you’re wasting time,” she said. “We need to speak to Draco, and then we need to stop Theo Nott from developing this idiotic obsession before it begins.”

“What obsession?”

“Who do you think made this?” the older Hermione said, lifting the Time-Turner again. “It has no restrictions. I could go back to the ice age if I wanted to. It’s incredibly volatile, but I had to try. We can’t… I need Draco back. I don’t know how to do this without him,” she said, and her voice was thick with emotion as she spoke. 

“It’s _unrestricted_?” Hermione asked. “That _has_ to be illegal.”

“Oh, it is,” she said. “That’s why I’m limiting myself to three days. It’s already far more than the Ministry would have allowed me had I asked them, but from all the research I’ve done I think three days is still well within a reasonable limit for time alteration. Not that I couldn’t do significant damage, but… well, it’s a calculated risk, at least.”

“ _Merlin_ , my head,” Hermione said, clutching at her temples. “This is you? I feel like I’m dying, why don’t you feel like—”

“Oh, I do. I just have more to worry about,” she said, dismissively. “I can handle a bit of a headache.”

“A _bit of a headache_ ,” Hermione muttered incredulously. 

“Come on then. Up you get.”

Hermione scowled at her older self but begrudgingly got out of bed. She pulled on thick knit socks to ward against the freezing cold stone floors in the hall and then yanked on a Chudley Cannons t-shirt and a pair of boxers, both Ron’s, from her dresser drawer. The older Hermione scoffed at it all and she rolled her eyes. “It’s just pajamas.”

“You look ridiculous.”

“It’s—” she cast a _tempus_ charm. “It’s three in the morning. It’s clothing. I’m not going to Malfoy’s in my knickers.”

“You should, you’d start the inevitable rolling,” the older Hermione said with a laugh. “If everything remains the same it’ll take you another five bloody years to come around to it. Especially if you shag Ron, he gets so insufferably clingy after you—”

“Stop, _please_ ,” Hermione said, holding a hand to her temple. “It’s bad enough you dropped twenty years of this in my head, I don’t need you doing… whatever _that_ is.”

“I’m doing you a favor, believe it or not,” the older Hermione said snippishly. Hermione glared. If this was how other people felt when she levied that tone against them, she suddenly felt a bit of sympathy. It was immensely frustrating. She waved an impatient hand toward the door. “Move it along, Granger, I haven’t got forever.”

“Shut _up_ ,” she hissed, moving to the door. “I’d rather not have to explain to everyone in the bloody corridor why there are suddenly two of me.”

She pressed her palm to her eye again as she padded down the corridor to Malfoy’s room. When she arrived there, she hesitated. The older Hermione cleared her throat impatiently and she threw her head back with a sigh, raised one hand, and knocked. When nothing happened, she did it again, with a bit more urgency. She hoped desperately that no one in the other rooms was awake to hear it. She was about to knock a third time when the door cracked open and a barely-awake Draco Malfoy, wearing only a pair of oversized flannel pajama bottoms that slung low on his hips and pooled over his bare feet, peered out at her. He glanced her up and down and frowned.

“Granger? It’s the middle of the—” he noticed the older Hermione. He blinked disbelievingly and his mouth fell slightly open. “What the fuck?”

“I’ll explain. Or, well, she’ll explain, I suppose,” Hermione said, and she winced as a wave of pain lanced through her skull. “Please let us in, the longer she’s here the more it hurts.”

“What?” he asked, alarmed, and from the corner of her eye, Hermione saw her older self gesture impatiently at him. He sighed and opened the door, letting them both in. Hermione sat on the edge of his bed and buried her face in her hands with a groan. Draco turned to the older Hermione and asked rather brusquely, “What are you doing to her?”

“It’s because we’re the same person, I shouldn’t be this close to her,” she said. Then she looked him up and down. “ _Merlin_ , you look good.”

“Wha… thanks?” he ran a hand through his hair. He glanced back at Hermione with a face full of unease, and she shook her head and gestured to the older one. “Now can I ask again, what the fuck?”

“You might want to sit down,” Hermione grumbled from the edge of his bed. “It’s a lot.”

He pulled the first shirt he could reach out of his dresser, a simple black t-shirt, yanked it on, then turned and looked at Hermione with both curiosity and concern. He did as she said, sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. Hermione didn’t look at him. She was too busy trying to press the headache out of her face with her palms. Nothing helped. She was on the verge of tears. And then the older Hermione spoke.

“I’m here from roughly 25 years in the future,” she said. “There, I’m your wife. We’ve got two kids. You’re the love of my bloody life, and a week ago, you died.”

“What? No,” he looked sideways at Hermione, who had leaned forward with her hands on her face. He looked back at the older Hermione. “We’re married? I _died_?”

“Yes, thanks to your idiot friend Theo and his fucking experiments,” she said, with quite a bit of bitterness in her tone. 

“Theo? We’re not friends,” he said, frowning. “I don’t _have_ friends.”

“Yes, you do,” Hermione grumbled from beside him. “Sitting right here.”

He made a low hum in his throat. The memories flooding through Hermione’s head flared in response. It was the sound he made when he had something to say but didn’t want to say it. Hermione took her hand away from her face and looked curiously at him. He simply looked away, back at the other Hermione, who sighed. “You have plenty of friends in the future, Draco, it just takes a bit of time after the war and all. You even got to be pretty good friends with Harry by the time our kids were born.”

“This is fucking surreal,” he muttered. Hermione made a small sound of agreement beside him. 

“Imagine having it in your head,” she grumbled.

“What? You can see it?”

“She touched me,” Hermione said, as if that would explain it all. He frowned and glanced from her to the older version of her, not understanding. The older Hermione waved it off and continued.

“I need the two of you to keep Theo from getting into this Time-Turner obsession in the first place,” she said. “I’ve only got three days in this timeline before I need to go back, and if I go back and you’re still dead, I don’t know how I’ll—” she stopped, her voice having thickened again. She tipped her head back and blinked back tears. “You need to be alive when I get back there.”

Another thrum of pain slammed through Hermione’s skull and the dam broke. She let out a pained whine and tears squeezed out the corners of her eyes. Beside her, Draco grumbled softly. “Two bloody Grangers and you’re both crying.”

“Yes, well, my brain is trying to escape my skull. She needs to leave,” Hermione said irritably, and the older Hermione sighed heavily.

“We need to get to _work_ ,” she said, and Draco glanced between them and shook his head.

“It’s three in the bloody morning, Old Granger,” he said. That earned him a glare. Beside him, Hermione let out a watery laugh. “We go back to bed and figure this out in the morning. Assuming this isn’t the weirdest fucking dream I’ve ever had.”

“I can’t be seen,” the older Hermione said. “And I don’t think she and I ought to—she should stay here,” she thought out loud. “I’ll take her room.”

“What?” Hermione jerked her head up. “ _You_ stay here. Or have you forgotten I’m actually dating Ron Weasley in this bloody timeline?”

“Merlin only knows why,” Draco muttered, and she glared at him. The older Hermione let out a little snort. 

“I’m fond of him,” Hermione said, and then she tipped her head back. “You stay here, I’ll go back to my room, we figure this out tomorrow.”

“Absolutely not,” Draco said. “Take her with you.”

“Oh, yes, great idea, let me just lie in bed with a paradox, that will end well,” she said. “I can barely see straight right now, Malfoy.”

“So go sleep in Weasley’s room and let her have yours,” he offered.

“No.”

“Why not? Didn’t you just say you were, what was it, _fond_ of him?”

“No,” she repeated, and the older Hermione huffed a single laugh. 

“Right, Halloween, I remember,” she said, and before Hermione could stop her, she rolled her eyes and sighed, gesturing at Draco. “You had that fight about this one again.”

He raised an eyebrow and turned to face Hermione, a grin slowly spreading across his face. She dropped her face into her hands again.

“This isn’t happening.”

“You can stay here,” he said. “You can even have the bed. On one condition.”

“What’s that?” she asked, and the older Hermione laughed.

“Yes, what’s that?”

“That shirt doesn’t touch my bedding,” he said, and he got up, dug around in one of his drawers, and threw a Falmouth Falcons t-shirt at her. 

***

_“Are you fucking mental, Hermione!?” Ron bellowed. “You just brought him here?”_

_Hermione stood before Ron and Harry in front of their tent, Draco behind her. Knowing Ron would be the unpredictable one, she’d put herself between them to keep him from throwing any hexes. She’d even told Draco to shift if she moved to keep herself in Ron’s line of fire. Harry had his eyes fixed on Malfoy, but was quiet. Ron was shouting enough that half of England would have known they were there, if not for her careful wards._

_“I believe him,” Hermione said. “He answered every question I asked without hesitation. I have his wand,” she said, holding her hand up. She held her own wand and Draco’s together. He had been surprisingly willing to let her take it, which had just been one more item on the growing list of reasons she believed him._

_“I want to see proof, before I can trust you,” Harry said warily. “But I’ll accept help if you have it for us.”_

_“Anything I hear,” Draco offered. “Anything useful.”_

_“It’s only useful if you don’t get caught,” Harry said._

_“I’ll be careful,” he replied. “I don’t want my mum hurt. I’ll do anything if it means she’s safe.”_

_“I have an idea,” Hermione said. “Ron, would you get my bag, please?”_

_“I haven’t agreed to this,” Ron said, and Hermione tensed, crossing her arms. Behind her, Malfoy let out a huff of air, but said nothing. Harry turned to Ron._

_“Hermione and I are willing to see if this works out,” he said. “You’re outvoted. Just get the bag, would you?”_

_Ron glared at Draco, but ducked into the tent. Moments later he returned with the bag. Hermione reached in and pulled out two of her old protean charmed coins. She tucked Draco’s wand under her arm and handed the bag back to Ron, who remained close, watching her over her shoulder. She tapped the coins with her own wand and muttered to herself, unlinking them from the rest of the coins she had made, making them a solitary pair. When she was done, she turned to Draco._

_“Use this to send messages. Keep them short. It’ll get warm when a message appears,” she said._

_“Bloody hell,” Ron muttered, walking back to Harry. Hermione rolled her eyes and then pressed the coin into Draco’s palm._

_“Like this,” she said, and then she tapped her wand on the coin she’d retained, writing I BELIEVE YOU into it. A moment later, Draco smiled slightly as he read the message in his own palm. Then she handed his wand back. “Once you leave my wards you won’t be able to get back in. And I doubt we’ll stay here after tonight. Is there anything else you want to tell us before you go?”_

_“Just thanks, Granger,” he said. “I don’t think anyone else would have… just thanks.”_

***

As soon as the older Hermione left the room her headache dissipated. It seemed to land back in actual hangover territory, which after the skull-splitting proximity of the other Hermione, seemed like nothing at all. Malfoy transfigured himself some bedding and made up a place to sleep on the floor. While he occupied himself with that, Hermione quickly traded Ron’s shirt for Draco’s. She dropped Ron’s onto the floor by the bed along with her socks, and curled up under the covers. 

It smelled nice. She closed her eyes and memories that weren’t hers, associated with the smell of Draco and the bed, came to the forefront of her mind. It was a particularly intimate collection of memories. Her pulse quickened and her body reacted, and then she snapped her eyes back open. She reached a hand up and into her hair, agitating it as she tried to think of anything else. It felt awkward and voyeuristic to know what she knew. 

“Merlin,” she muttered, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. Moonlight streamed into the room from the window, the full moon hanging brightly outside. Draco had extinguished the light and settled while she’d been in her own head.

“I’ve seen some weird shit, Granger. This is up there at the top of the list,” Malfoy muttered from the floor. Hermione sighed.

“I have all these memories that aren’t mine,” she said. “I can see her whole life. It’s… it feels like reading someone’s diary. It isn’t right.”

“Memories of me?”

“Yeah.”

“Like what?”

“Like twenty years of a marriage, Malfoy, you know what,” she said. There was a long silence. She wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

“That’s unfair,” he said, finally. She heard him shift on his bedding. She didn’t respond right away, and then he added, “You awake?”

“I don’t think I can sleep,” she admitted.

“Tell me one,” he said.

“What?”

“One of the memories, tell me,” he said. “I’m curious.”

“Like what?”

“Hm. First kiss?”

“Malfoy,” she sighed.

“Come on,” he goaded her. “If you get to know it, I want to know it. You can’t tell me we have a whole life together that you can see and then not share.”

“Outside the Leaky Cauldron,” she said, sighing. “Harry asked me along to have drinks with you, Blaise Zabini, and Dean Thomas, and we’d been on a few dates by that point. That’s a weird combination of people, isn’t it?”

He huffed. “Yeah. How’d that happen?”

“You’re Aurors, the lot of you,” she said. “Harry’s your partner.”

“What?” he shifted again, curious. “Granger, that’s bizarre.”

“You’re telling me,” she said. “I can _see_ it, Malfoy. We have two children. They’re teenagers.”

Malfoy got up off the floor and climbed on the bed, flopping down beside her on top of the bedding. “Tell me about them.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m curious,” he said. “Tell me.”

“What good would it do?” she asked, turning to face him. She propped herself up on her elbow to look him right in the eye. In the moonlight she was reminded very strongly of the few times during the war she’d met him face to face. He’d risked his life every time, and he’d always, always followed through.

She still thought he could be an enormous pain in her ass, and it drove her absolutely batty that he could still rile her up, but she considered him a friend. She seemed, however, to be the only one. Most of the others held him at arm’s length and only begrudgingly accepted that he had proven to be an ally. Ron still considered him an adversary. That Hermione had grown to respect him and was friendly toward him only seemed to make him more of a threat, a target upon which Ron was more than willing to project all of his jealous insecurities.

Merlin help her if Ron found out about tonight’s events. Or what was in her head as a result.

Draco pursed his lips thoughtfully, considering her question. “Does it have to do any good for you to tell me?”

“I suppose not,” she replied, quietly. “They’re called Scorpius and Aurora. Scorpius looks like you but has my eyes, and Aurora looks like me, if I were tall and narrow like your mum.”

“They’re teenagers? What house?”

“Scorp’s a Ravenclaw,” she said. “Aurora’s a Slytherin.”

“Ha,” he smiled widely. “Scorp.”

“And Rory,” Hermione smiled a little. 

“Are we happy?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Very. It’s a good marriage,” she said, softly. She looked him in the eye and chewed on her lip. All of her doubts about her relationship with Ron rubbed dissonantly against the knowledge that a relationship with Draco was so good. It unsettled her. Draco scanned her face as she thought, and then she added, “Really, really good, actually. But it doesn’t feel right to know that like this.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. He dropped his gaze to the bedding as he spoke. “Her showing up with a whole life already lived and just dropping it into your head, that’s…”

“It’s unsettling,” she said, softly. “And I feel like all I can do now is worry that everything I do will ruin something she values. Like if I take a step out of line I’ll destroy this life that my future self adores.”

“That’s no way to live,” he said. 

“If something changes, I wonder if the memory will stay,” she thought out loud. She sighed and rolled back onto her back. Then she took a deep breath and let it out again, crossing her fingers on her stomach and tapping at the back of her own hand. Beside her, Malfoy stayed on his side, watching her. She turned her head and looked back at him. “She wants me to break up with Ron.”

He huffed, smiling a little. “Well that’s interesting.”

“I’d like to decide for myself.”

“She’s _you_ , Granger. If she thinks that, then wouldn’t you also think it?” he asked. Hermione sighed again. 

“I did think of that, yes.”

“Don’t you have the memories? You could see why.”

“That’s not the point,” she said. “I feel wrong digging into those, Malfoy, I don’t…”

“Fair enough,” he said. He laid back on the bed, mirroring her position. “What if you changed something on purpose?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. What if you picked something she remembers one way and then you just… purposely do it another way?” 

“Like ending it with Ron,” she said. He chuckled.

“I wasn’t going to say that, but sure. Did you really fight with him about me?” he asked. Hermione sighed. 

“It’s the same bloody fight every time,” she said wearily. “He thinks you’re a terrible and irredeemable Death Eater and I don’t.”

“Every time?”

“He can’t keep from starting it every time I get anywhere near you,” she said with exasperation. “Though to be fair, I did rise to the occasion this time.”

“Why?”

“Maybe because I was drunk. Maybe because Harry complained,” she said. She sighed and looked at him again. “You aren’t the only one that can get under my skin, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” he said. He grinned at her. “It’s just too fun to get you going.”

She rolled her eyes. Then she put her hand up in front of her face and made an attempt at casting a wandless _tempus_. It blinked in and out of existence in front of her, telling her it was nearly four in the morning.

“Impressive,” he muttered. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Have you tried?”

“No,” he admitted, and then he raised his own hand and made an attempt. There was a bit of a flash of something, but not readable. He made an appreciative sound and then looked back at her with a smile. “More than I expected.”

“There’s a lot of that tonight,” she said. Her mind was full of him. She’d gone from having a vague idea of what he was really like to knowing deeply and intimately that he was smart, funny, thoughtful, gentle… so many traits that she’d only gotten hints of so far, because he almost always had his walls up. And now that she knew all these things, she knew those walls were defensive, not offensive—she’d always assumed he was hiding something, was keeping his secrets close, but now she knew he was protecting himself. Keeping out what he thought would hurt him. Which after the war was nearly everything. She rolled back to her side and propped herself up on her elbow again, looking down at him now as he lay on his back. “She loves her Draco more than anything. If this doesn’t work she’s genuinely considering going all the way back and killing Theo in the cradle just to make sure you live.”

“Merlin, Granger,” he muttered. “And you have all that in your head.”

“All of it,” she sighed. “I went from thinking you and I were just becoming friends, to knowing you better than I know anyone else.”

“Bloody unfair.”

“There’s nothing for me to discover,” she said, and to her surprise, she felt disappointed. She wondered if the older Hermione’s feelings for her Draco were having an effect on her feelings for the Draco right in front of her. Bloody unfair indeed. She frowned. “I already know it all.”

“Unless you change it,” he said. 

“Unless I change it,” she agreed. Then she sighed. “We should sleep.”

“Unlikely, but I’ll make an effort,” he said. He started to get up, and Hermione put her hand on his arm.

“You don’t have to.”

“What?”

“You’re already here,” she said. “Just sleep.”

“If you’re sure,” he said, and then he dropped back down on his back. Hermione lay back and closed her eyes. Images of an older Draco ruffling the unruly brown hair of his teenaged son fluttered up from her mind before exhaustion took her.

***

_“You’re too trusting. Malfoy’s probably telling them everything he could see about our setup,” Ron said. For the fourth time in the four days since she’d given Malfoy the coin, he was starting the same argument._

_“Ron, if you haven’t got anything new to say about it, don’t start,” she said, wearily._

_“Seriously,” Harry piped up from the other side of the tent. He had the horcrux around his neck and was particularly irritable. Ron took offense._

_“The two of you,” he shook his head. “Always siding with each other. I see how it is.”_

_Hermione watched as he stormed out of the tent and sighed heavily. She heard Harry mutter, ‘git,’ under his breath, but left him alone. Pulling the coin from her pocket, she thumbed its face and then put it back. She felt deep in her gut that Ron was wrong._

_He had to be. Because otherwise it meant that she’d doomed them._

***

Hermione woke to find Draco curled up against her, his head on her shoulder and his arm draped over her middle. She squinted at the light coming in from the window and held a hand up to block it; the sun was shining directly on her. She turned away from it and the movement seemed to wake him. He lifted his head somewhat, looked up at her, and then scrambled off her.

“Sorry,” he said. She huffed.

“You were asleep,” she said, excusing it. She sat up and stretched her arms over her head. He watched her. His eyes dropped to the shirt she was wearing for a moment. She caught it, and it brought up one of those memories that weren’t hers, a lazy morning in a home she hadn’t known yet, an insatiable new husband sliding his hands under the same shirt. “Bloody hell.”

“What?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“These fucking memories,” she grumbled irritably. “There’s not a thing I can’t just experience for myself anymore. I don’t even have a choice.” He looked at her curiously, and she shook her head. “It’ll just make you angry.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s sex,” she said flatly, and his face dropped. 

“Oh,” he said. His eyes had gotten stormy, and he tried to keep from scowling at her. “Yeah, that’s… yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault.” 

“It is, though, isn’t it?” she griped. “My future self decided to come mess with everything. I don’t even think she thought about how it would affect me. Or you. Now here I am full of memories of _us_ and you haven’t even… we aren’t... _ugh_ —”

There was a knock at the door, and then Hermione’s head started to drum. She winced and her fingers went to her temples. Draco frowned crankily. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, let her in before someone sees.”

Draco didn’t bother schooling his face before he opened the door, turning away and sitting back on the bed without greeting the older Hermione. She swept in and let the door slam behind her, and Hermione glowered at her. “Could you be less _you_ for just a minute?”

“Less _you_ , you mean?” she retorted, giving Hermione a tight smile. “We’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to do it—”

“Why did you touch me?” Hermione snapped, interrupting her. “You had to have known something like this would happen.”

“What?”

“Your bloody _memories_ ,” she grumbled. “There’s not a single thing I have yet to experience in my life that you didn’t just forcibly drop into my skull. There’s twenty years of _him_ in here,” she said, gesturing at Draco, “And he’s not privy to any of it. Didn’t you think this through? If you want the two of us to actually wind up together I don’t think frontloading me with everything and leaving him in the dark was particularly smart. He’s furious and I feel violated.”

“It’s not exactly violating to know your own mind. And he’s loved you since fourth year, he’ll get past it,” the older Hermione said, gesturing dismissively in Draco’s direction, rifling through one of the books she’d brought with her. Hermione closed her eyes and breathed deeply as Draco got up and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving her with her doppelgänger.

“Smart,” Hermione said. She pressed at her temples. “Real smart.”

“He’ll come back.”

“That’s not the _point_ ,” Hermione ground out, and then she took a deep breath. 

“The _point_ , my intrepid younger self, is for him to outlive me,” she said, looking up from the book.

“Well if you enrage him enough in the process you’re going to wind up back in your timeline with no kids and no Draco,” Hermione said, and then she stood, picking up the Chudley Cannons shirt and her socks. Her older self grabbed her arm to stop her and there was a violent thrum of pain in her mind. She choked out half a scream before she stopped herself as the older Hermione recoiled in pain.

The door swung open and Draco returned. “The whole hall is going to know you’re in my room if you keep that up,” he said, and then he furrowed his brow. He moved quickly and put himself between them. “What are you _doing_ to her?”

“I was trying to stop her from leaving,” the older Hermione said. “But I admit she made a good point. I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean to give you my memories. I shouldn’t have touched you.”

“Fat lot of good it does now,” Hermione muttered. Draco closed his eyes and breathed through his nose.

“You stay right here,” he said to the older of them. Then he turned to Hermione. “Stand by the door.”

“Anyone passing will hear me—”

Draco rolled his eyes, pulled out his wand, and cast a muffling spell on the door. “No, they won’t.”

“Oh, how novel,” the older Hermione said, staring at him with a bit of a daze that reminded Hermione of Luna. 

“It’s _muffliato_ , Old Granger,” he said flatly. She shook her head. 

“No, it’s just that I remember this,” she said. “I remember last night, too. And the weight of your arm this morning, and the _rage_ about the memories—oh, _Merlin_ , this is strange.”

Hermione frowned and looked at Draco. He looked back at her with an equally perplexed expression. She looked back at her doppelgänger. “Have your other memories changed?”

“Not a one,” she said. “How curious.”

“Well that’s… actually kind of interesting,” Draco said. Then he took a breath and pointed at the older Hermione. “But you _have_ to stop dropping random facts about us from the future into your conversations. I don’t care if she has all your memories. Things like ‘I’ve loved her since fourth year’ should be for me to tell her, not you.”

“Why does it matter? She already knows—“

Draco clenched his jaw and set his lips in a tight frown. Hermione flinched as another of those alien future memories cropped up, Draco standing off with his father, holding his tongue to keep from screaming. She growled with frustration. “I’m going. I need to not be here for a little bit.”

She wheeled around, opened the door, and stormed back to her own room, where she slammed the door shut and sank down against the door. Anger, frustration, the sheer overwhelming feeling of having an entire lifetime in her head that she hadn’t actually lived, and the splitting headache brought on by the proximity of her doppelgänger—all of it sent her careening over the edge. She cried harder than she’d cried in recent memory, not realizing or caring that she hadn’t silenced her door.

That she’d just slammed it and burst into gut wrenching sobs explained the frantic, worried knocking that came moments later. She scrambled to her feet, wiped at her face, and hoped against hope that it wasn’t Ron on the other side of the door.

So naturally, it was.

“‘Mione, what in Merlin’s name is going on?” he asked, and he barged in to comfort her. He pulled her into a tight embrace. “Is it a panic attack? Did you have a nightmare?”

Hermione just shook her head. She let him hug her and tried to calm herself, her mind racing. The other Hermione would theoretically have access to this as a memory, now that it was happening, and stay out of sight in Draco’s room. If he was murdering her in his aggravation, all the better.

Ron let her go and pulled her to sit on the edge of her bed. “‘Mione, what’s going on—Falmouth? Where did you even get this?“

Hermione’s eyes bulged as he fingered the hem of the t-shirt. “I’ve had it for ages, I don’t know. Must have picked it up somewhere.”

“Rubbish team, Falmouth,” Ron muttered, and then he looked at her face. He used his thumbs to wipe her tears away and smiled at her. “What’s this about, ‘Mione?”

“It’s nothing,” she said, and then she kissed him to shut him up. _Please stop thinking,_ she thought. She kissed him enthusiastically enough to know he was distracted, stopping when his hand slid up underneath Draco’s t-shirt and that memory of their future bubbled up again. She pulled back and he beamed at her, dumbfounded and just a little dopey-looking. It softened her mood a little. He had his moments. “Let’s get breakfast.”

***

_She was setting up the wards in their new location when her pocket warmed. She finished a set of sound-muffling spells and then reached into her pocket._

_GET OUT OF SURREY._

_“Merlin,” she muttered. “We just got here.” She tapped the coin and sent, HOW DO THEY KNOW?_

_As she waited for a response, she went to Harry and Ron. “Stop unpacking. Pack it back up. We have to leave.”_

_“What? We just got here—”_

_“Pack it back up, quickly,” she said with urgency, and she felt her pocket warm again. She pulled the coin out._

_YAXLEY BORDER WARDS, it said. A few moments later, another message blinked. ON HIS LAND. LEAVE NOW._

_“Oh my god. We have to go,” she said. She watched as they packed the last of their things away and gestured for them to come to her. Yanking down her wards, she took their hands and watched a dozen Death Eaters appear right in front of her just as she apparated them away._

***

Ron and Harry had quidditch practice that afternoon, so she returned to the eighth year corridor. Her head started to throb as she approached Draco’s room. She knocked on the door.

Her older self answered it. Draco was lying on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking utterly harangued. Hermione scoffed. “Why are _you_ answering the door? Are you mad? What if it wasn’t me?”

“I knew it was you, my head’s hammering,” she said flatly. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“I couldn’t exactly tell Ron, ‘Please leave me alone so that I can go back to Draco’s room,’” she said. She sat down on the bed and Draco peered sideways at her. She looked apologetically at him. “I have to keep your shirt.”

“What?”

“I still had it on when he showed up,” she said. “You should be glad he has no idea who your team is. I told him I’d had it forever.”

He snorted and turned his head back, closing his eyes again. “Forgive me, Granger, but I’m having an exceedingly hard time believing I married you right now.”

“Preparing your elaborate plan without me, are you?” she said, glaring at her older self. 

“Draco here has been arguing with me about our memories, actually. Why you’re both so upset about them is beyond me,” she said snippishly. “The _plan_ is very simple, now that I’ve had a bit of sleep and time to think about it. Draco just needs to befriend Theo _now_ and not two years from now when he starts work at the Ministry.”

“Oh yes, how simple,” Draco drawled. Hermione looked down at him to see that he was still pinching the bridge of his nose, still had his eyes shut, and still looked on the verge of a full rage, which she’d never seen before in her life. It was thanks to the older Hermione’s memories that she even knew the signs. Again, it frustrated her.

“I need Occlumency lessons so I can pack your life away,” she ground out. The older Hermione looked at her with consternation.

“No you don’t,” she said. “For all we know those memories will go when I do. You’ve already changed the timeline.”

“I hardly think I will be able to forget—“

“My theory, if you’ll indulge me—“

“Like we have a bloody choice,” Draco grumbled. The older Hermione sighed and barrelled on.

“My _theory_ is that the memories in _your_ head will remain static even as mine are changing, provided I don’t touch you again,” she said. “And that when I leave this time and return to my own, your continued lives will be altered time and time again from the one I lived before. The memories in your head will no longer happen exactly. In fact, I’m counting on it, because one of the memories you hold in your head is his death, which I intend not to see again.”

“Noble, Old Granger, but women tend to outlive men,” he drawled. 

“Yes, well,” she waved a hand at him. “I’ll count old age as the only acceptable reason you might not outlive me.”

“I’m also left-handed,” he added, though now his tone was slightly lighter, and he glanced at Hermione with a mirthful glint in his eye. She huffed a little laugh. She was barely listening to them banter, still considering the other Hermione’s theory about the memories. If this was a temporary situation, it felt far less like an eternal trap. 

“I really hope you’re right,” she said, and both Draco and her doppelgänger looked at her curiously. “If I have to live with all these memories for the rest of my life knowing every step I take might destroy something you cherish I _will_ go mad.”

“You won’t go mad,” Draco said, and he put a reassuring hand on hers. 

“I’m half convinced I’ve already lost the plot,” she muttered. He patted her hand once and then sat up and looked at the older Hermione.

“Okay, Old Granger, how exactly am I meant to befriend Theo Nott? We haven’t spoken since sixth year and even then we weren’t close.”

“You weren’t?” Hermione asked, curiously. He just frowned and shook his head.

“He was a bit of a loner. Didn’t talk much,” he said. “And I spent most of my time with Greg and Vince.”

“You two have plenty in common, just start a conversation,” the older Hermione said. “Honestly. You can talk the ear off a stalk of corn, just do that _Draco_ thing you do.”

“I what?” he looked at Hermione for confirmation. She sighed. 

“As bizarre as it sounds, she’s not wrong,” she said. She tapped her temple. “I’ve seen it.”

He shook his head. “What head injury did I sustain to make me so…”

“It’s me,” the older Hermione said. Then she sighed and gestured to Hermione. “Rather, it’s her, for you. You’re such a surly prat because you’re sad and lonely, not because it’s who you _are_. When you’re happy you open up like a sunflower. It’s really very endearing. Scorp’s just like you in that way.”

She stopped talking and poked Draco in the chest with an emotional little frown. He blinked down at the spot. 

“She’s with Weasley,” he muttered. “You keep forgetting.”

“Because it’s not—“ the other Hermione looked warily at her, and she felt a stubborn defiance rise in her. 

“Don’t tell me what I feel, Old Granger,” Hermione said. Draco smirked as the other Hermione frowned at her adoption of Draco’s nickname for her. Then she looked at him. “Is it normal that I can barely stand her?”

To her delighted surprise, he laughed loudly. The sound boomed in the room, a broad smile immediately brightening his face. The older Hermione teared up and blinked rapidly, turning away for a moment, while Hermione watched him with a small, growing smile on her face. 

That, as her myriad unearned memories confirmed, was one of her favorite sounds in the world. And she’d just heard it for the first time roughly four years before the older Hermione had.

“We’re rewriting things,” she said with a grin. Draco looked at her and she tipped her head toward her doppelgänger, who was still turned away, collecting herself. He raised an eyebrow and she mouthed, “I’ll explain later.”

He just shrugged. 

The elder Hermione collected herself with one more deep breath, and then turned back around, looking fixedly upon Hermione. “I have two days now,” she said, her voice wavering a little. “I’d like to leave here with the confidence that Theo never develops that little obsession. _Please_ tell me there’s some event or excuse you can use in the next day or so to go and—“

“Gryffindor plays Slytherin tomorrow,” Draco said.

“Well that’s useless, you’re seeker,” she grumbled. He rolled his eyes.

“There’ll be a party after,” he sighed. “Well, given a victory, anyway.”

“Bugger all,” Hermione muttered.

“Excuse you,” Draco said.

“I can’t remember the last time Slytherin beat Gryffindor,” Hermione said. 

“Because it hasn’t happened yet while we’ve been at Hogwarts,” Draco begrudgingly admitted. “First time for everything, Granger. Have some faith.”

“Go, go, Slytherin,” the older Hermione said softly. 

“Haven’t you seen the game?” he asked. He looked between the two of them. The elder Hermione waved a hand and left it for the younger to find in the trove of unwanted memories in her head. With a heavy sigh, she thought about it.

“Well, that’s unhelpful,” she muttered.

“What?” Draco asked.

“She skipped it, because in her version of the last few days, the fight with Ron turned into a standoff,” Hermione said. She gestured toward her older self. “This one instigated a legendary Gryffindor row and decided not to go. She had a nice long bath and read a book in her room instead.”

“Bloody useless,” he muttered.

“Well we’ve already changed _that_ as well,” Hermione said. “I made up with Ron this morning.”

“Wasting time,” the older Hermione muttered. Hermione shook her head and ignored her.

“There is a bit of Harry’s bragging, something about you getting distracted by people jeering you from the stand—oh no _.”_

“What?”

“Someone is going to start a Death Eater chant.”

He clenched his jaw and she caught sight of his hand tightening into a fist. Then he ground out, “Well, now I know when to look for the snitch.”

“And you’ll know it’s coming?” she offered. “I’m sorry, Draco.”

“No, it’s good you told me,” he said. “I guess those memories aren’t entirely terrible.”

***

_They got themselves settled in the town moor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The wind was cold and bitter, and someone had spray-painted SEX STOP on a bench along the path nearby, making Ron and Harry titter immaturely while Hermione set up their wards._

_“Was that Malfoy?” Harry asked, after they’d gotten themselves entirely settled. Hermione nodded, picking at her beans. She was so tired of beans. Harry added, “He just saved our skins.”_

_“I still don’t trust him,” Ron muttered._

_“I know you don’t,” she said flatly._

_“He’s just biding his time. Making us think he’s on our side until he strikes,” Ron said. Hermione glanced up at him, exhausted. He had the horcrux on._

_She heaved another sigh. “You’re wrong.”_

_“You’re being naive,” he said. He turned to Harry. “And you’d let her say anything, because you’re blinded.”_

_“Go to bed, Ron,” Harry said, exasperated. “And take that thing off. One of us will take it.”_

***

At dinner Hermione sat between Neville and Ron, facing Harry and Ginny—and the Slytherin table, where Draco sat with the rest of the quidditch team, clearly strategizing. She was trying to pay attention to the conversation around her, having told Draco she’d give him anything that might be helpful in the match. But she kept having to swat away the other Hermione’s memories.

The way Draco was leaning in and speaking animatedly to his fellow teammates brought up memories of playing exploding snap with his children. The way he pushed around the food on his plate with his fork told her there was broccoli there that he was avoiding. At one point he ran both of his hands through his hair and she got a flash of him coming up the beach from swimming in clear blue water on a vacation.

“‘Mione? Hello?” Ron bumped her shoulder. She looked at him to find him waiting expectantly.

“Sorry, what was the question?”

“Blimey, woman,” he muttered, and irritation rose swiftly within her.

“The question, Ron.”

“We were wondering if you’d bring us something hot to drink before the match tomorrow,” he said, gesturing to Harry and Ginny along with himself. She glanced at Harry and he smiled hopefully at her.

“You know how far it is to the pitch and back,” he said. “Even on the brooms we’d be cutting it close if we went to get them ourselves.”

“I can do that,” Hermione said. “Neville, can I sit with you?”

“Course you can,” he said. “Dean, Seamus, and Lavender will be with me, too.”

“Lead ‘em in a round of Weasley Is Our King if we win, yeah?” Ron threw his arm around her and kissed her on the side of the head. She smiled tightly and said nothing. Though he’d done nothing to earn it, she was annoyed, and she bit her tongue. As she glanced between Harry and Ginny, she caught Draco’s eye across the room. He held her gaze for a moment, and then went back to his conversation.

She tried to do the same. 

***

_Hermione felt the coin in her pocket heat up and held a finger up to excuse herself from the conversation. Ron and Harry were trying to come up with something fun for the three of them to do. She could escape for a moment._

_She pulled the coin from her pocket and looked at it with a frown. It read simply GREYBACK HAS YOUR SCENT._

_Tapping it with her wand, she sent back, WHAT DO I DO?_

_She tapped her foot impatiently waiting for an answer. A werewolf who had her scent would find her eventually, there was no way around it. She chewed her lip. How had Greyback even done it?_

_Finally, the coin warmed in her palm. MASK IT. STRONGER IS BETTER._

_With a groan, she replied. HOW DID HE GET IT?_

_The reply was fast. YOUR HOUSE._

_A chill went through her. Every worry, every nagging question she had about what she had done to her parents… it had been worth it. She sent one more message._

_THANK YOU._

***

“Oh good. I’m starving,” the older Hermione said when Hermione brought her a bundle of food from the hall. “Did you learn anything helpful?”

“Yes, but I need to get to Arithmancy,” she replied. 

“It’s Draco you need to inform, anyway,” she answered dismissively. Then she handed over a roll of parchment. “If you have a moment this afternoon, could you please try and get these from the library?”

Hermione winced against the proximity headache and took the scroll. Glancing it over, she nodded. “I usually go there after Arithmancy anyway—you know that. Why am I telling you?”

“Same reason I’m telling you to trust your instincts when you get irritated with Ron,” she said. “You’re changing things and I’m collecting new memories. Today’s lunch felt the way I felt the first time, just later on. It’s going to keep happening.”

“Could you let me handle it, please?” Hermione sighed. “You know you’ve taken all the fun out of it, right? If I already know what it’s like to fall for Draco—“

“But it won’t be the same,” the older Hermione protested. “Merlin, you’ve already heard him laugh. I’ve spent the last week dying to hear that sound just one more time, you have no idea—“

“But that’s exactly it,” Hermione argued. “I knew it was a sound I love before I actually heard it. There’s no discovery, no surprises. If he kissed me tomorrow I’d already know what to expect. Don’t you see?”

“But you still love it,” the other Hermione retorted. “You knew you would, and then you _did_. You’re changing the timeline already, the memories in your head are probably already becoming false. Just hope they vanish when I do. You’ll have your surprises.”

“And if they don’t? I can’t… how am I supposed to feel like I have any choice in the matter? You’ve shown me an incredible life with him. I’d be mad not to want it,” she admitted. A knot formed in her stomach as soon as she said it out loud. She _wanted_ it. But she was with Ron, and this whole situation still felt completely unhinged to her. She felt so stripped of choice that she was hesitant about changing anything for fear of blowing things up. The older Hermione smirked triumphantly. She continued. “But how do I know I’m choosing for myself and not just following this template I was given?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters!” Hermione snapped. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s about choice!”

“I made those choices!” the older Hermione retorted, a little loudly. “I’m you, that’s how you know you’d choose them! Because I already _did!_ ”

Head splitting, Hermione let out a frustrated shout. Then both of them stopped as there was a sharp knock on the door. Hermione was closer, so she opened it. Draco stood on the other side.

“You ought to learn _muffliato,_ Granger,” he said, and Hermione let him in.

“I know it,” she argued. 

“You might try using it before having a loud argument with yourself,” he said. She sighed and didn’t respond, just closed her eyes against the headache that had settled behind her eyes. Draco nudged her arm with his. “Got time to tell me about your lunch conversation?”

“I have Arithmancy,” she said. “I only came up here to give her some food.”

“And managed to get in a fight?” he chuckled. She shook her head. The older Hermione smiled cheekily at them and Hermione just sighed. 

“I need to go.”

“Wait,” Draco said. “I’ve got quidditch practice in an hour and after dinner I’ve got a makeup session with Slughorn. I don’t have time—“

“She has to sleep at yours again,” the older Hermione said. She tapped her own forehead. “Can’t share a room with me.”

“Right,” Draco said. “Well, er…”

“What time can I come?” Hermione asked him. He looked down at her and for a moment, he looked like he was going to protest. 

“Ten,” he said. “I should be back by ten.”

***

_“Merlin, ‘Mione, you reek,” Ron crinkled his nose and frowned at her. She’d covered herself in tinctures and oils, even rubbing it into the roots of her hair, making herself look positively prehistoric._

_“Thanks, Ron,” she deadpanned. “Very helpful.”_

_“Why are you even doing that?” he asked. “It’s just what Malfoy said. He probably thought it’d be funny.”_

_“His messages have all been accurate so far,” Hermione said. “If I trust him, which I do, this will save my life. If I don’t trust him and ignore it, and he’s right, Greyback finds us and you two get to watch me be brutalized before he eats me for dinner.”_

_“Yikes, Hermione,” Harry piped up from his position on the bed. He was lying on his back, the horcrux centered on his chest, and he looked shattered. It was almost time for her to take a turn._

_“So, Ron,” she glared at him. “Trust Malfoy, or no?”_

***

“Hi,” Hermione said quietly when Draco opened his door to let her in. He was in soft pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved shirt. His eyes skimmed Hermione as she brushed past in her flannel shorts and long-sleeved Tottenham Hotspur shirt. 

“Tottenham?” he asked, closing and then locking and muffling the door. 

“Hm?” she asked, and then she looked down at herself. “Oh! Yes, it’s my dad’s favorite football team. Muggle sports.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “Better than Chudley.”

“Chudley is Ron’s team,” Hermione said, and Draco rolled his eyes.

“No Weasley talk in my room, Granger,” he said, sitting down on the bed. Hermione smirked.

“Okay, then how am I meant to tell you about Gryffindor quidditch? There are two Weasleys on the team.”

“Fine. No boyfriend-Weasley talk in my room. Quidditch-Weasley talk is acceptable,” he conceded. Hermione shook her head and sat down on the other side of the bed, pulling her knees up in front of her. Draco’s eyes raked along her bare legs and to the chunky knit socks on her feet. His lips twitched in a small smile that he covered up by speaking. “So did you learn anything useful?”

“Ginny’s irritated with Ron about his tendency to favor his right side,” she said. “She and Ron are both hot-headed, so if your team scores a few times early on by taking advantage of his position—“

“They’ll start sniping at each other,” he grinned. “I’ve seen it in past games. Good going, Granger.”

“I’m a turncoat,” she said. “A traitor.”

“You’re theoretically doing this to save my life,” he muttered. “Giving up a few Gryffindor secrets is worth it, if you ask me.”

“It’s only fair,” Hermione said quietly. “You saved mine.”

Draco just gave her a soft smile, his eyes catching hers for a moment before he slid along the bedding to lie down on his back, getting comfortable. Hermione tugged her socks off and slid under the blanket, now warm because she’d been sitting on it. He extinguished the lamp, leaving only the light of the moon. 

“If Ginny gets upset on the pitch it’ll distract Harry,” Hermione offered, as she rolled to her side and faced Draco. He settled on his side so that they were face to face. 

“Enough that he’d miss the snitch?” he asked.

“I think that depends on how upset she is,” Hermione said. He made a thoughtful face.

“If we have the beaters target her specifically will that annoy her enough?”

“That and staying to Ron’s left might do it,” she said. She sighed. “Merlin help me if they ever find out I told you all this.”

“I’ll never tell,” he grinned at her. “I like having secrets with you.”

Hermione smiled widely at him. He returned it. Then she took a breath and asked, “How much of that argument did you hear earlier?”

“Enough to know you like what she put in here,” he admitted without hesitation, tapping her temple gently with one finger. She felt her cheeks heat up, blushing furiously. He added, “And that you’re upset with her for it.”

“Yeah,” she said, softly. She sighed, drawing her hands up to her chin and curling into herself a little. “It’s hard to explain.”

“You looked a little Luna Lovegood-ey at lunch today,” he said, changing the subject. “Like you could see all her wrackspurts and nargles.”

“It was these memories,” she said. “Every other move you made triggered something.”

“Hm.”

She rolled onto her back. “I hope she’s right. I hope they go when she does,” she said. A thick lump formed in her throat as she added, “I don’t want to know everything in my life before I’ve lived it.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Then he rolled onto his back. “Night, Granger.”

“Goodnight.”

***

_Hermione slammed her hands into the floor of Malfoy Manor, breathing heavily and trying not to cry in the wake of the cruciatus Bellatrix Lestrange had just finished inflicting upon her. The witch loomed over her, fuming._

_“Where did you get that sword?” She hissed._

_Hermione lifted herself up with a shaking arm and looked up at her, grimacing. Then she ground out, “Fuck you.”_

_Behind Bellatrix, Draco turned away, leaning against the mantle of the fireplace. Bellatrix let out a shriek of indignant rage. “Crucio!”_

_Hermione screamed. Her arms gave out and her face hit the floor. Writhing and howling, she willed herself to take it, to power through and keep her wits. It was the worst thing she’d ever felt in her life, like every cell in her body was being raked across hot coals._

_When it stopped, she nearly threw up. Gulping desperately for air, she tried to lift herself up again, but her arms wouldn’t cooperate. Bellatrix kicked her in the side to make her roll. She yelped with pain and then gasped as Bellatrix leapt upon her, straddling her middle and grasping her face with surprisingly strong slender fingers._

_“I’lll ask you again, mudblood,” she snarled, leaning close. “Where did you get that sword?”_

***

Hermione woke to the sun in her face again and groaned, turning and grabbing for the pillow. Then she realized she wasn’t on a pillow, but rather, Draco’s shoulder.

She sat up.

“Morning, Granger,” he said sleepily. 

“Morning,” she muttered, dragging her fingers through her hair. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” he said, and then he sat up, too. “I like waking up with you.”

“ _Merlin,”_ she muttered to herself, and he chuckled. 

“Get used to it, Granger,” he said. “Now that I know it’s possible for you to actually want me, I’m not going to just quietly sit back and watch you date Weasley indefinitely.” She looked warily at him. He gave her a winning smile. “I am going to win you away.”

“Oh gods,” she dragged her hand down her face to hide the smile she couldn’t quash. Then she paused. She tapped her own forehead. “Well that’s certainly not in here, at least.”

“Rewriting things,” he grinned. “Speaking of, what did we rewrite yesterday? Old Granger almost cried.”

“You laughed,” she said. “A real loud big laugh. It’s her favorite sound in the world, she thought she’d never hear it again.”

“Oh,” he said, and his face turned sympathetically. “No wonder she almost cried.”

“She said she’d been dying to hear it one more time,” Hermione said softly. “It’s heartbreaking.”

“Then I’ll try to be extra serious,” he said, frowning with exaggeration. A smile turned Hermione’s mouth.

“I wasn’t supposed to hear it until we started dating,” she said with a little smirk. “We changed the timeline on that by years.”

“We can change it all,” he grinned cheekily. He leaned toward her and started, “What if I—“

“HAS ANYONE SEEN HERMIONE?” Ron’s voice boomed from the hallway. Hermione’s eyes widened. Draco swore under his breath. 

“I can’t go out there,” she said, panicking. Guilt flooded through her. Not because she was in Draco’s room, she realized, but because she’d been enjoying herself. The panic she felt now wasn’t that Ron would find her with Draco, but that she simply hadn’t thought of him at all until his voice had pierced the bubble. Draco shushed her.

“I can,” he said. “I’ll drive him off with some good old Malfoy antagonism.”

“Draco—“

“You can’t go out there in your pajamas,” he said. “Not from my room. He already hates me, I’ll do it.”

Hermione didn’t like it, but he was right. As Draco removed the spells from his door, she watched the way his shirt draped down from his shoulders. He glanced back at her and caught her looking as he put his hand to the handle. With a wink, he stepped out into the corridor.

“What are you bellowing about, Weasley?”

“Fuck off, Malfoy.”

Hermione knew without a doubt this would end with Ron in an exceptionally foul mood, something that for once she thought might be a useful thing, since she needed Slytherin to win the quidditch match. But she still didn’t like hearing it, and not because of what Draco was saying. Ron’s retorts went immediately to Death Eater taunts and Voldemort every time they crossed each other. It took ten seconds for him to bring up the Dark Mark. Her mood soured intensely as she listened, the surety that if it hadn’t changed by now that it would _never_ change, only confirmed by the memories in her head. It felt like cheating to look, but it confirmed what she was thinking regardless. Fuming, she grabbed her socks and pulled them on. It only took Draco a few well-placed barbs to send Ron slamming back into his room, and then he came back in.

“You should go,” he said with a frown. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” she said, and she stopped in front of him and looked up at him. She chewed her lip. “I hate that he says those things to you.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he said dismissively. But she could see in his face it had bothered him, and she frowned. He shook his head. “Go on. Get out of here.”

***

_She was in Shell Cottage, tucked into a cozy bed, warm and safe. The moon was high and nearly full, casting pale light through the cracks in the curtains._

_Every time she closed her eyes she saw Bellatrix Lestrange, felt the vice of her fingers around her jaw, felt echoes of the unbearable pain coursing through her body._

_She rolled to her side and reached to the nightstand, grabbing her coin and her wand. Pulling it all close and yanking the bedding over her head, she tapped the coin and sent I CAN’T SLEEP._

_The reply came swiftly. ME EITHER._

_She tapped again. ARE YOU OKAY?_

_There was a long window of nothing. Long enough that she worried the answer was no. And then his reply came, and the familiar, reassuring warmth of the coin. I SHOULD BE ASKING YOU._

***

“What was _that_?” the older Hermione asked as Hermione ducked rapidly back into the room.

“That was Draco taking a hit to buy me time to get back to my own bloody room,” Hermione snapped. The older Hermione blinked at her and then a slow smile grew across her face.

“He wants to win you,” she grinned. “I see it now. This morning.”

“Doesn’t it worry you?” Hermione asked. 

“You and Draco starting earlier just means it starts sooner,” she said. “I’d only be worried if you weren’t angry with Ron over what he just said in the hall.”

“He won’t change,” Hermione said, scowling. “I see it in your memories. He never stops.”

“I don’t have many regrets,” the older Hermione said. She stopped there and just tapped her forehead. “You know what I mean.”

Hermione sighed, trying to ignore the thrumming behind her eyes. As she changed into her clothes and tamed her bedhead, she let the memory go.

_“For once in your life, Ronald, could you please just refrain?” Hermione asked, her tone exasperated. “I love him. I’m marrying him tomorrow and I would rather not hear the words ‘Death Eater’ at my wedding.”_

_“‘Mione—“_

_“Ron, if you can’t promise it, I’m going to ask that you don’t come, and you’re one of my oldest friends. Please don’t make me do that.”_

_“Okay,” he said, sighing. He opened his mouth to say something else, and then stopped. His expression darkened as someone walked in behind Hermione. She turned to find Draco, holding two wine glasses. He gave one to her and kissed her briefly, a warm hello._

_“I’m not interrupting, am I?” he asked genially, and Ron shook his head once._

_“No, we’re done,” he ground out, and then he stalked off. Draco looked down at Hermione and raised a brow._

_“I told him I don’t want to hear his usual refrain at the wedding,” she said, and Draco sighed._

_“You’ve put up with it this long,” he said quietly, and her face fell. He shook his head and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Don’t worry about it, love.”_

_“Draco—“_

_“It’s okay,” he said. He looked her right in the eyes and his expression was soft. “You’re worried you’ll lose his friendship if you put your foot down, and that would hurt you more than hearing it hurts me. I want you happy. Don’t worry about it.”_

Hermione pulled on her Gryffindor hat and scarf in silence, and then slipped on her shoes. She turned to the older Hermione. “That’s bothered you ever since.”

Her doppelgänger nodded.

“Do you think Ron would be less hateful if you hadn’t stayed with him as long?” she asked. The older Hermione shrugged.

“I’ve wondered,” she admitted. 

“Hm.”

The older Hermione smiled. “Have fun secretly rooting for Slytherin.”

“Shut up,” Hermione said, and then she opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. Neville was standing there with Dean, waiting for Seamus.

“Hermione! Joining us, are you?” Dean grinned. He wrapped his arms around her in greeting and she smiled up at him. 

“Yep,” she said. “But first I’ve got to go and fulfill a drinks order for the team, so I’ll meet you all there. Save me a good spot, don’t put me on the end.”

“On the end behind Dean, got it,” came an Irish lilt from behind her. She turned and received a cheeky wink from Seamus Finnegan. “If we’re in two rows you can sit behind me.”

“Thanks, Seamus,” she beamed. “Right. See you there!”

It didn’t take long at all to get a tray full of steaming hot drinks from the kitchens. She cast a stasis charm to keep them warm before levitating them to the pitch. Swarmed by the team and showered with praise, she felt very welcome until she realized Ron had waited until last to corner her. 

“Where were you this morning? I wanted to see you,” he said as he took the last cup of hot cider, and she sniffed irritably. 

“I was sleeping,” she said, “Until you and Malfoy woke me up with your bellowing.”

“That Death Eater git—“ he started, and she narrowed her eyes.

“You have to stop doing that,” she said, and Ron gaped at her. 

“ _Me_? ‘Mione—“

She sighed wearily. “Yes, you. The things you said this morning—“

“You are bloody unbelievable—“

“You keep bringing up dark marks and Death Eaters every time you see him. It’s the worst part of his life.”

“He chose it,” Ron scoffed, and Hermione set her lips tightly.

“He’s done the work to atone, Ron, I am not going to keep having this argument with you.”

“So stop starting it,” he frowned. That infuriated her. It absolutely infuriated her. He’d dismissed her point entirely and also tacitly implied that he’d never stop. She could feel herself changing colors and she knew her face had twisted into a furious scowl. Ron’s face twisted, too. 

She let the empty drink tray clatter to the ground, “Fine, Ron, I won’t start it again. Consider this the last time. Say whatever you want. But I’m not going to listen to it.”

“‘Mione!” his face fell, irritation immediately subsumed by shock. “You’re not—wait—“

She turned on her heel and noticed the rest of the team had quietly vacated. Harry’s silhouette was clearly visible down the hall, waiting out the aftermath. She started to leave and Ron followed, reaching out to grab her elbow. “Don’t _touch me_ , Ron.”

“Hermione, please, wait,” he said, and she stopped and turned. She shook her head.

“This isn’t working,” she said. “All we do is fight.”

“We wouldn’t have to if you didn’t insist on talking to Malfoy like—“

“I don’t have to have your bloody _permission_ to make friends—“

“Fucking hell, Hermione—“

“I’m _done,_ Ron! I couldn’t even bring you all cider for the bloody game without you blowing up at me, I don’t _want this_ ,” she said, and her emotions bubbled up to a breaking point. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. She had a whole lifetime of a good, happy relationship rolling around in her head, and it contrasted so starkly with the constant push and pull of being with Ron. Deep in her heart she knew what the older Hermione had been trying to tell her. Ron Weasley wasn’t ever going to be the person she was meant to be with. There was better out there for her. She took a breath and pulled the trigger. “I don’t want to be in a relationship if it’s fighting all the time. I’m not happy when I’m with you, Ron.”

He deflated, his shoulders slumped. She shook her head and turned, walking out. She let the tears fall, unhappy with the way that had gone. She hadn’t come down here to do anything but deliver cider, but he’d walked her to the precipice and dared her over it. As she passed Harry in the corridor, he stopped her. 

“You okay?”

“I will be,” she said, wiping her face. She frowned at him. “I’m sorry I dumped your keeper ten minutes before the game.”

Harry laughed. “Not the best timing, no. But—“ he stopped, biting his tongue.

“But what?” 

“But it needed to happen and he was never going to be the one to do it,” Harry said, shrugging. “It’s going to be okay, Hermione. Better now than a year from now, you know?”

“I suppose,” she replied. 

“Need a hug?” he offered. She burst into tears and nodded, letting him wrap her tight in his arms.

***

_CAN YOU MEET? the coin said. Hermione stared at it for a moment and chewed nervously at her lip. The risk involved in meeting him was so high. But he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important._

_She turned to Harry. “He wants me to meet him.”_

_“What? No.”_

_“Harry, it must be serious if he’s asking,” she said._

_“Asking what?” Ron walked in, and immediately Hermione tensed._

_“Malfoy wants her to meet him.”_

_“Absolutely not, Hermione, don’t be mental,” he said dismissively. She crossed her arms and scowled at him._

_“He wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t—“_

_“The last time we saw him you got tortured,” Ron said, and Hermione scoffed loudly._

_“He wasn’t part of it—“_

_“He was there!”_

_“So were you!”_

_“That’s different, don’t act like that’s not different,” he growled. “You’re not going.”_

_“You’re not my keeper,” she spat back._

_“Hermione—“ Harry started, and the coin warmed in her hand again. She looked down at it in her palm to see EVERYTHING OKAY?_

_NEED A MINUTE she sent. Then a moment later she added, STUPID FIGHT._

_“Maybe it’s time one of us took the coin,” Ron muttered, and Hermione lifted her eyes to stare daggers at him._

_“Oh, because you dislike Malfoy, now I can’t be trusted?” she frowned at him, insulted. “He’s done nothing but help us, Ron, how much more do you fucking need?”_

_Harry stepped between them and put a hand on Hermione’s shoulder. “Go,” he said. “You have two hours. If we don’t see you by then, we’ll come after you.”_

_She nodded. She frowned angrily at Ron, and then stepped outside and tapped the coin. WHERE?_

***

Everything that might have gone wrong for Gryffindor did go wrong, from Ginny being struck hard with a bludger after half an hour and being out the rest of the game, to Harry being completely distracted by his girlfriend’s injury, to a downtrodden Ron playing like it was the first time he’d ever sat a broom and getting more and more frustrated every time Slytherin scored against him. 

Hermione observed with more than a little curiosity that the Death Eater chant her memories had recalled never happened. Gryffindor playing so poorly from the start must have taken the gloating energy right out of their supporters.

It was a rout. Draco caught the snitch after an hour and a half. The Slytherin stands erupted into a cacophony of sound unlike much of anything Hermione could recall, and all around her the Gryffindor stands groaned like they’d all been poisoned. 

Hermione went back to her room, glad to have gloomy Gryffindors all around her to hide among. When she arrived, the older Hermione was sitting on her bed, legs crossed beneath her, nose in a book. She lifted her head and beamed.

“I was not expecting a breakup among all the quidditch memories,” she said. “But good for you.”

“Please just leave it,” Hermione groaned. Splitting pain shot into her skull from behind her eyes. “Even if you’re right, it still doesn’t feel great right now. I only went down there to deliver drinks.”

“You said I’m right,” the older Hermione smiled to herself. Hermione grumbled, shouldering her coat off and shedding the scarf and hat, and then she looked at her older self, who was smirking smugly. She shook her head and stepped out of her room again.

Down the corridor, Harry and Ron were talking quietly to one another. Neither had noticed her yet, and she watched as they both turned toward the stairs. She heard Harry shout, “Ron, don’t!” 

Ron flailed sideways and out of view. Harry barrelled after him. A moment later, Draco shot into view at the top of the stairs, having dodged whatever Ron had done. He called back, “What is your bloody problem, Weasley?”

Hermione scrambled forward and met him in front of his door. “What did he do?”

“He took a swing,” he said. She sneered. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Why’d he do that, anyway?”

“Partly quidditch, partly because I broke up with him, I’d imagine,” she said. His eyebrows shot up. 

“You what?”

“I’ll explain later,” she said, and in a moment of panic that Ron would round the top of the stairs to see her standing there in conversation with Draco, she bolted. “I should go.”

She heard Draco laugh to himself as she moved to the stairs, where she found Harry fighting laughter and Ron sitting on the landing in a sulk. He sneered at her. “What do _you_ want?”

“To go down the stairs,” she answered, and Harry snorted. Hermione set her jaw and then asked, “Why are you sitting there, anyway?”

“He tried to—“

“Shut up, Harry,” Ron barked. Harry shook his head and addressed Hermione.

“He needs to cool down, he’s in a right state after the match,” he said. “I’ve got this.”

“How’s Ginny?” she asked, and Harry let out a single laugh. 

“She’s ready to kill us all,” he said. “Me for letting Malfoy catch the snitch, Ron for playing like a toddler—“

“Oi!”

“You _did,_ she isn’t wrong,” Harry bit back. Then he looked back at Hermione, who had cracked a smile. “She’ll also want the Slytherin beaters drawn and quartered, but only after ours, because they should have kept the bludger off her and they failed.”

“So the entire quidditch team, then.”

“All of it.”

“She’ll want me dead too, I expect,” Hermione sighed. Harry grinned and shook his head.

“She’ll be cross with you for your timing, but you did the right thing,” Harry said, and then he glanced over at Ron, who had turned his angry glaring toward him as well. “Oh, come off it, Ron. The two of you bickered relentlessly—”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, and then he got up off the floor and stomped his way up the stairs. A few moments later his door slammed so loudly that the portrait at the top tutted loudly about manners. 

“He needs a nap,” Hermione muttered. Harry cracked up.

***

_Hermione had pulled her hair back into a ponytail, charming it straight to try and mask herself somewhat. They’d agreed to meet in muggle London, at the ticket booth of the London Eye._

_She felt wildly exposed._

_She shoved her hands in her pockets and waited, scanning the crowd._

_“Hey,” he approached from the left. Like her, he’d masked his appearance. He’d darkened his hair to a dirty blond, which had a surprisingly arresting effect on his entire look._

_“Hi,” she said. He smirked._

_“You look really different,” he said. “And I can smell you from here.”_

_“Whatever works,” she replied. She gave him just the barest hint of a smile. “I shouldn’t stay long.”_

_“It was too much for the coin,” he said. He tipped his head and indicated for her to walk with him. He kept his voice low and cast a muffling spell around them as an extra precaution. “The Dark Lord is beside himself with rage over your escape from the manor. My whole family is one misstep away from death.”_

_“I’m sorry,” she said. He shrugged._

_“I want my mum safe,” he said. “The only way for that to happen is for this thing to end sooner rather than later. What’s left? Can I help?”_

_Hermione hesitated. She knew that Ron would insist telling Malfoy about the horcruxes risked the whole operation. And while Harry had accepted Malfoy as an ally, she wasn’t sure he would be okay with her telling him the core of the plan. But she looked up at him and met his eyes. The sincerity behind them was enough for her. She trusted him._

_“We’re still after two horcruxes,” she said. And then she told him everything._

_***_

“How late could they possibly go?” Hermione asked the older Hermione. She got a shrug in return.

“It could be an all nighter, Slytherin hasn’t beaten Gryffindor in ages,” she said. “You know how they get about quidditch.”

“I’m going to die,” Hermione groaned. She rubbed at her temples. She was sitting with her back against the door, as far from the older Hermione as she could manage. She was already dressed for bed in soft cotton shorts and thick woolen socks with a long-sleeved team Bulgaria quidditch world cup shirt that was so large on her it may as well have been a tent. It had belonged to Viktor, once upon a time. 

“You’re not going to die,” the older Hermione chuckled. “I’m here, I’m proof.”

“I wonder if I could get into his room without him,” she said, and then there was a knock on the door, two sharp raps. She stood and opened it to find Draco on the other side. “Oh, thank Merlin.”

He smiled slowly. “You’re waiting up for me?”

“I can’t sleep in here,” she said. She turned to the older Hermione and waved, ducking out of the room and following Draco to his. As soon as they got inside, he muffled the door behind them. Hermione immediately went to the bed and pulled her socks off, sliding under the covers like she belonged there. Draco turned to face her and laughed.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, and she grinned at him. He smiled back at her and then wasted no time, not masking his curiosity even slightly. “Okay, explain the Weasley thing.”

“I thought you said no boyfriend-Weasley talk in your room?” she teased. He laughed and rolled his eyes.

“It sounds like he isn’t your boyfriend anymore, so it doesn’t qualify.”

“I think I blew up a little,” she said. “I don’t feel great about how it happened.”

“Tell me,” Draco said, and then he moved to his dresser and pulled out pajamas. He turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow, holding it all up. “I don’t mind you seeing, if I’m being entirely honest, but—”

“Oh,” Hermione blushed and ducked under his blanket. “I’ll just… tell me when you’re done.”

A few moments later, she felt a weight on the bed beside her, and Draco pulled the blanket down so that she could see him again. “You’re adorable, Granger.”

“I’m what?” she asked, and he just grinned at her.

“Go on,” he said. “Tell me how you blew up the Gryffindor team.”

“I didn’t blow up the whole team,” she protested.

“Weasley played like he’d never seen a quaffle before in his life,” Draco laughed. “Did you dump him right before the game? Merlin. We should make you an honorary Slytherin.”

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” she protested. “I only went down there to deliver them their drinks. He’s the one that couldn’t control himself.”

“You brought them drinks and he managed to get himself dumped?” Draco asked. “Were the drinks poisoned?”

“No, he just couldn’t help but start up the bloody death eaters and dark marks argument _again_ ,” she sighed heavily. “I told him I’d had enough and that I didn’t want to have that fight again, and he essentially told me that we wouldn’t have to have it if I didn’t insist on talking to you all the time. As if he could just tell me not to.”

He smirked. “How’d Old Granger take it?”

“Oh, she congratulated me,” Hermione replied, and he laughed. “I’m sure she’s in my room right now wondering just how many other things I can rewrite in the day or so she has left here. Did you manage to make friends with Theo?”

“I did,” Draco grinned. “And Blaise. And I might have gotten Pansy to forgive me, maybe. That’s still a mystery.”

Hermione smiled. “So it worked, then?”

“I mean, one night can’t possibly be the whole solution, right?” he said. “But we had a good time. I feel good about it.”

“I’m glad.”

“So,” Draco said, and he extinguished the lights, lying down and getting comfortable. He was on top of the bedding, as he had been the two nights prior, while Hermione was underneath it. The moon was waning gibbous now, still bright but less so. She faced away from the window as she looked at him, his grey eyes shining in the moonlight, the shadows cast by the angles of his face dark and moody. As they had the night before, they faced each other. 

“So?”

“Rewriting history,” he said. She looked curiously at him, and he continued. “You said Old Granger didn’t hear me laugh until years from now. But you heard it yesterday.”

“Yeah, I did,” she smiled. He smiled at her. 

“What else is different?” he asked.

“Bloody everything, now,” she said. She sighed. “First of all, she tried to make it work with Ron for two _years_ before she ended it. And in her version of the timeline we weren’t this close,” she gestured between them. “Until we dated. You didn’t see me in pajamas until like the sixth date.”

“You’re _very_ cute in your pajamas,” he said. Hermione beamed. He added, “Even if you keep wearing your ex boyfriends’ clothes into my bed.”

“What?” she asked, and he reached toward her and toyed with the collar of her shirt. 

“This one has to be Krum’s,” he said. “Don’t bother trying to tell me you actually bought a team Bulgaria shirt six times larger than you needed.”

Hermione couldn’t stop smiling widely at him. “It’s comfy.”

“I have comfy clothing,” he offered, and then he sat up again and crawled forward on the bed, reaching forward with one long arm to pull open the top drawer. He yanked out the first shirt on the pile and tossed it to her. “Go on.”

With a laugh, Hermione waited for him to turn his back and then pulled the team Bulgaria shirt over her head, replacing it with Draco’s shirt. It was a long-sleeved black shirt with a stylized dragon printed across the front. She threw the Bulgaria shirt at the back of his head and he turned, dropping it to the floor and beaming at her. 

“Much better,” he said, tossing Krum’s shirt to the floor. He crawled back to the head of the bed. She laughed softly at him.

“You don’t have to stay on top of the blankets, you know.”

“Oh, thank Merlin, I was freezing last night.”

“You didn’t have to be,” she said. “That’s your own fault.”

“I was trying to be a gentleman,” he said, properly. He slid underneath the bedding and then turned to face her. “Because you were spoken for.”

“A gentleman,” she repeated, and he nodded. 

“Proper and well-mannered.”

“And what happens if you aren’t trying to be a gentleman anymore because I’m no longer spoken for?” she asked, grinning mischievously at him. A smile spread across his lips, devious and wanting.

“We rewrite some of those memories,” he said. And then he reached toward Hermione and slid his fingers into her hair, pulling her face to his and planting his lips upon hers. He kissed her gently at first, but very quickly intensified it, sliding his tongue along her lips. She parted them for him, giving him access to deepen the kiss, and curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. 

She’d known from the older Hermione’s memories that kissing him was intoxicating. She’d known, theoretically, that it was a feeling she’d never get enough of, that he could kiss her for hours and she’d still part from him feeling a deep longing for more. But a memory she’d never lived herself had no way of living up to experiencing it in the moment. No amount of memories could compare to the warmth of him against her mouth, the slip of his tongue against hers, the press of his lips against her own. 

Her heart slammed in her chest and her body flared to life, every inch of her burning for him. She’d never felt anything like it.

***

_They’d only just returned to Hogwarts. Ginny and Neville were giving an update on what was going on. Hermione was surprised to hear that they suspected Blaise Zabini, Theo Nott, and Pansy Parkinson of helping._

_“All three of them are full of nasty words all the time, but I haven’t seen any of them cast any spells against us,” Ginny said. Ron scoffed, but Harry looked excited._

_He had a theory that most people their own age wanted nothing to do with Voldemort’s war, if pressed. Draco had started the seed of the thought in his mind, and this was only watering it. Hermione grinned at him._

_“We only have proof from Pansy,” Neville said. “But she’s dating Blaise, and Theo is always with them. I think they’re all going to be on the same page. Like you three.”_

_Hermione gave Neville a tight smile and let the assumption go unchallenged for Ron’s sake. He’d only recently returned to them. The rift he’d caused was a sore subject._

_Her pocket warmed and she excused herself. Ron scowled after her, but Harry put a hand to his arm and shook his head. They had agreed to keep Draco’s involvement a secret._

_CAN YOU MEET?_

_Hermione sent back, THAT DEPENDS. AT HOGWARTS._

_The reply came swiftly. CHARMS CLASSROOM 10 MIN?_

_She replied. OKAY._

_One more message came from Draco. JUST YOU._

***

They kissed and kissed, neither of them willing to stop, neither of them particularly caring about how tired they would be the next day. It didn’t matter.

As they enjoyed one another, they moved closer and closer together, limbs entangling beneath the bedding. Draco slid a hand under her shirt and she smiled against him. She curled her hand around the back of his shoulder and he rumbled appreciatively. She slipped her leg between his, circling his calf with hers. 

He broke away and beamed at her. “Am I dreaming?”

“You are not,” she said, and she pulled him back to her. He slid his hand from her hip to her back underneath his shirt, toying with the waistband of her shorts. She stopped him. “Not until she leaves.”

“What?” he asked, and she huffed irritably.

“She offers _commentary_ ,” she said. He grumbled, and she murmured in agreement, kissing him again. “Also, I’m hoping she’s right about the memories vanishing when she does.”

“Right,” he said, his voice soft. He sounded unhappy. He was clearly trying not to frown. “Right, you already know.”

“Draco,” she breathed. He pulled his hand away from her and disappointment seeped into her inch by inch. And then he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her to his chest. She closed her eyes and held him close. 

***

_She stood in the Charms classroom under Harry’s invisibility cloak. Draco ducked into the room and closed the door behind him. He looked around. “Are you here?”_

_“I am,” she replied softly, and then she pulled the cloak off. Briefly, he smiled widely when she came into view, but then his face became serious again and he cast a series of spells on the door. He turned and came to her. For the briefest moment she thought it looked like he was coming to embrace her, but he stopped at arm’s length._

_“They’re going to target Weasleys.”_

_“What?”_

_“In the battle. They’ve decided killing as many Weasleys as they can is the best way to demoralize Potter. They’ve even prioritized them. Ginny, then Ron, then the parents, then the twins. Anyone else is—“_

_“That’s awful,” she breathed. He nodded._

_“They should, at the very least, glamour their hair.”_

_“Yeah, thank you, I’ll tell them.”_

_“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, and he ran his fingers through his hair. Hermione smiled at him._

_“It’s all thanks to you,” she said. “This is the first time I haven’t smelled like a poison garden exploded inside a candy shop.”_

_His eyes lit up with amusement. Then he twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “Look, Granger, if I don’t make it through this—“_

_“Don’t talk like that,” she cut him off. “You will.”_

_He stared at her for a moment before he said quietly, “You have more faith than I do.”_

_“I have a lot of it, if you’re short,” she said. Then she gave him a cheeky smile. “Besides, you haven’t taken your N.E.W.T.s yet and you’re my closest competition. You have to live so I can beat you.”_

***

They woke to knocking. It wasn’t loud, but it was insistent, and as she blinked at the light of dawn coming in from the window, Hermione curled against Draco with a whine. Her temples throbbed. “It’s her.”

“She said three days, right? This is the last of it?” he said, hopefully. Hermione nodded, and he got up. Hermione just curled into the warm place where he’d just been, dragging the blanket over her head. The other Hermione slipped into the room and immediately began talking, which only irritated Hermione more. She burrowed further into the bedding, curling up into a ball. 

There was a weight on the bed beside her as Draco sat down. He pulled the bedding down until he found her face. “You’re going to leave me alone with this?”

She grumbled into the mattress and then pushed up, dragging a hand through the unruly nest that was her hair. Then she leaned on Draco, which made the older Hermione smile broadly.

“Oh, look at you,” she said. “This is better than I ever dreamed.”

Hermione put a palm to her left eye and pressed. “Shhh.”

“You okay?” Draco muttered softly, looking down at her. She shook her head. 

“It’s worse,” she said, softly. “Every day it’s worse.”

“I’ll be gone around ten tonight,” the older Hermione said. “And I’ll leave you sooner than that, I just want to know if it worked. Did you befriend Theo?”

“I did,” Draco said. “But one good party can’t possibly be enough, can it?”

“Well you should keep hanging out with him,” she said, leveling a weary look at him. He rolled his eyes.

“Clearly,” he said. “But how do you know he won’t—”

“He told me all about his hobby,” she said. “After the accident. It took him years to even come up with the theory that fueled this thing.” She patted her chest, where the Time-Turner hung underneath her shirt. Hermione squinted at her. 

“Years that he spent alone?” Hermione asked.

“Yes,” the older Hermione said. “I’m almost entirely certain that simply keeping him from being lonely and bored will solve the problem.”

“That seems too easy,” Draco said. Hermione muttered an agreement. Then she slammed her eyes shut, tears leaking out from the corners, as a splitting pain coursed through her mind. She let out a whimper and Draco’s arm closed around her shoulders. He addressed the other Hermione. “You’re hurting her. You should go.”

***

_“Protego!” Hermione was shouting herself raw casting spells left and right. She was at the bottom of the stairs in the main corridor at Hogwarts, her back against a wall, moving sideways as fast as she could. Above her on the stairs was a Death Eater, large and bumbling and absolutely drooling to catch her._

_She was so tired. She considered turning tail and sprinting, but the area was so active with spellfire that she thought it would be risking her life to make a break for it. So she kept firing off shield spells._

_The Death Eater cackled gleefully and her eyes went wide as she saw another one come into her peripheral vision. She was now sandwiched between two Death Eaters, exhausted, and swiftly running out of room._

_“Stupefy!”_

_The new Death Eater grabbed her arm and yanked as the bumbling one nearly caught her in his spell. Fear flooded her. Certainty that she was about to die paralyzed her. He then cast the same spell in return, and Hermione’s eyes widened as she recognized his voice. It was Malfoy._

_“Go,” he said, softly, and then he shoved her out the door he’d just come through. “Go now.”_

***

When the older Hermione had gone, Hermione simply lay back down, squeezing her eyes shut and sagging into the bedding. Draco leaned down to her, gently sliding his fingers against her face. “You’re still in pain.”

“It takes longer to stop every time,” she said, softly. “And hurts worse. She shouldn’t be here.”

“I hate seeing you in pain,” he said. He shifted, lying beside her, and pulled her close. “I’ve seen enough of it to last a lifetime already.”

“Your aunt,” she acknowledged. He hummed affirmatively. She closed her eyes and slid her arm around him, breathing him in. She loved this feeling. She wasn’t sure if she only loved it because a lifetime of memories she hadn’t lived told her she did, but she loved it all the same. The thought made her sad. If the older Hermione leaving didn’t take those memories away, she wasn’t sure she would ever trust that she actually felt what she felt, or if she was simply following a script provided to her. It was overwhelming, and coupled with the lingering pain of the older Hermione’s proximity, it was too much. Tears pricked at her eyes. She curled her fingers into Draco’s shirt and clung to him.

“You know you’re the strongest person I know, right?” he asked her. She made a small questioning sound, keeping close to his chest. “You never broke. She hit you so many times and you never broke.”

“I thought she would kill me,” Hermione admitted softly. “Every time she pointed her wand at me I thought that was it.”

“I wanted to help,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t get you killed.”

“I know,” she said. The memories this conversation was dragging up were hard, but at least for once they were _hers_ , which felt important. She finally opened her eyes, her headache having dulled to a low throb. Looking up into Draco’s face, she found sorrow and sympathy. She kept his gaze. “You couldn’t have done anything, Draco.”

He closed his eyes and frowned. “Hermione—“

“Shh,” she said, and then she pulled at him, drawing his face to hers for another slow kiss. When they came apart again she whispered, “Please, believe me when I say I don’t blame you for anything that happened to me that day. Please.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “I promise.”

***

_Hermione leapt sideways as Crabbe’s attempted killing curse flew through the spot she’d been standing moments before. Draco was shouting at him not to kill them, that the Dark Lord wanted them alive. She heard his shouting become more frantic as she scrambled to her feet. She spun and threw a stunning spell in their general direction._

_Harry disarmed Goyle. Crabbe threw another killing curse, narrowly missing Ron. Hermione watched as Draco took cover and barrelled toward Goyle, throwing more stunning spells. She landed one on him and Goyle hit the ground and remained still. Harry was shouting at her._

_“It’s somewhere here!” he pointed at a pile of junk. The diadem was in there. It had fallen in. She saw from the corner of her eye as Draco’s eyes scanned it from the other side. He was looking for it, too. Harry bellowed at her. “Look for it while I go and help--”_

_There was a roaring sound, a terrifying crackling, and Ron and Crabbe came bolting up the aisle. Uncontrolled flames rolled swiftly toward them, and they all scrabbled at each other, running as fast as they could. Malfoy grabbed Goyle, still stunned from Hermione’s spell, and dragged him along. Before long Hermione could no longer see him anywhere._

_“What can we do?” Hermione shouted. She spun in place, frantic. Where had Malfoy gone? She turned to Harry and again asked, “What can we do?”_

_He found brooms. Inexplicably, he found brooms. He tossed one to Ron, who grabbed Hermione and dragged her onto it with him. She held on tight and they rose into the air. Ron bellowed, “We have to get out!”_

_“We can’t leave Draco!” Hermione argued, and Harry nodded. He swooped further into the room against Ron’s protests. Hermione shrieked at him. “Follow him, Ron!”_

_“If we die for them I’ll kill you, Harry!” Ron shouted. Hermione scanned the room. She saw nothing but fire and smoke. It was ashes and flames as far as the eye can see. And then there was a scream, a panicked yelp, and she watched as Harry spotted them. He flew down and Malfoy clambered onto his broom. Hermione grabbed at Goyle, and Ron helped her drag him up._

_Ron bolted for the door even as they pitched and rolled dangerously on the broom with Goyle’s added weight. Behind them, she could hear Malfoy shout, “What are you doing? The door’s that way!”_

_Moments later she was gulping fresh air in the corridor, watching Harry and Malfoy careen wildly into the wall, stumbling off the old, battered broom. Everyone took a moment, slumping against the wall, gasping and leaning their heads back against the wall. After a long spell, Malfoy rasped, “C-Crabbe?”_

_“He’s dead,” Ron spat without any sympathy. Hermione flinched, watching as Malfoy hung his head._

***

Eventually Hermione had to admit that she was starving, and they finally disentangled from one another and got out of bed. She tried very hard to ignore the myriad memories that told her it was the way she’d spend hundreds of Sunday mornings, sleepily snuggled against him, lazily enjoying one another until something finally dragged them away from each other. 

As much as this particular set of memories warmed her heart, she still wanted them gone. 

“I need clothes,” she muttered, and then she sighed. “I’ll be right back.”

“No, I’ll go,” he said. When Hermione began to protest, he moved back to her and put his hands on her shoulders, looking her right in the eye. “She hurts you,” he said. “I’ll get what you need. She knows what you‘d wear, she’s you.”

“Okay,” she said.

He let her go and moved to the door. Then he paused, looking back at her. “What if your friends are out there?”

“I’m not hiding you,” she said without hesitation. The smile Draco gave her was entirely worth it. It was big and broad and beautiful, and he came back to her from the door to give her a kiss for it. She grinned at him, even as she warned, “There’s going to be a fight as soon as Ron finds out.”

“I don’t care,” he replied. He kissed her one more time. “Merlin, you’re incredible.”

***

_Hermione heard McGonagall’s scream as she exited the castle with Ginny and Ron. She looked up and froze in place._

_Hagrid was holding Harry’s limp form in his arms and bawling._

_“No,” she gasped, and then she screamed. “HARRY!”_

_Her knees went weak as Ginny screamed beside her. She stumbled sideways into her friend, who clung with a vice grip to her arm. Around them more people started to shout and wail; some with grief for Harry, others with rage at the Death Eaters. Hermione’s heart had fallen to her feet and shattered into a million irretrievable pieces. All around her, pain and grief and rage swelled in the crowd._

_And in her pocket, the coin grew warm. Through tears, she fumbled for it, pulling it from her pocket and blinking at the words. IT’S NOT OVER. SURVIVE._

***

They made it all the way to the great hall before someone saw them together. It was Pansy Parkinson. 

“Well this is unexpected,” she said, as they came into the hall together, hands entwined. Then she smiled broadly. “Blaise is going to laugh until he cries.”

“What?” Draco laughed loudly. Hermione just smiled, happy to see them speaking so genially. Pansy laughed. 

“Weren’t you dating Weasley?” Pansy asked Hermione. She nodded.

“I _was,_ ” she said. “I’m not anymore, clearly.”

“Upgrade,” Pansy said, grinning. Draco chuckled softly. He gave Hermione’s hand a squeeze as Pansy gestured for them to join her at the Slytherin table. Hermione sat beside him and as Pansy babbled amiably with them, it occurred to Hermione that she might have been just as lonely as Draco had been. 

“Hi?” Blaise Zabini sat beside Pansy, looking curiously at Hermione as he settled. Draco grinned at him and kissed her on the temple, making Blaise laugh incredulously. “ _How?”_

“Just lucky, I guess,” Draco said. Hermione just smiled.

“You’re about to get your bollocks hexed off,” Pansy said, glancing sideways. Hermione turned to see Ron staring daggers at them and immediately frowned. She whipped out her wand, quickly casting a series of spells over the entire end of the table. Much like the spells she used in the war, they would cause people to avoid the whole area.

“What was _that?_ ” Blaise asked, amusement across his entire face.

“I’m enjoying my lunch,” Hermione said, quietly. “I’ll handle Ron later.”

“Impressive spellwork, Granger,” Pansy said. “You have a way to let Theo in?”

Hermione glanced to the doors of the hall to see Theo Nott walk in. She got up. “I’ll get him.”

There was no wiping the smile from Draco’s face. Hermione approached Theo, who furrowed his brow deeply and frowned at her. 

“Where’d you come from?”

“Slytherin table,” she grinned. Then she grabbed his hand, receiving a feeble protest, and dragged him inside her spell. He relaxed as soon as he saw the others. 

“Uh. Okay?” he said, and Pansy cracked up.

“Hey Theo,” she grinned. “Want to hear something weird?”

***

_Hermione stood shoulder to shoulder with Ginny and Luna, slinging spells at breakneck speed at Bellatrix Lestrange. The three of them together were barely holding her back, and she was throwing unforgivables left and right._

_Harry was dead and this bitch was alive._

_It wasn’t fair._

_She fought and fought, her goal now simply to outlive Bellatrix, to make it past this duel and then the next and then the next. The witch cackled maniacally and then threw a killing curse at Ginny, only barely missing her as she dodged and bumped Hermione as she leapt sideways. She could feel the coin hot in her pocket, but she ignored it, unwilling to take her eyes off her torturer._

_“NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!”_

_Hermione, Ginny, and Luna were all brushed aside as Molly took over, her protective fury fuelling her in a battle to the death. Hermione watched with a mix of astonishment and horror as the Weasley matriarch drove Bellatrix back, back, back, and then she sent one last curse flying directly at Bellatrix’s chest._

_Bellatrix froze in place and then toppled dead to the ground._

_And in the next moment, Harry Potter uncloaked himself to throw a shield between Molly Weasley and Voldemort. Disbelief and relief washed over her and she grabbed sideways for Ginny, clinging to her to keep from collapsing._

_The coin warmed again. As Harry and Voldemort faced off, she risked looking down at it._

_HOLY FUCK, GRANGER._

***

“I knew it,” Ron spat. Hermione turned, the movement requiring her to let go of Draco’s hand. She turned to find Harry and Ron behind them. Harry looked amused, but Ron was incandescent. He had his wand out and was aiming it at Draco. Immediately, Hermione put herself in between them.

“Leave it, Ron,” she said.

“How long?” he asked. He stepped forward with a scowl. “How long have you been shagging the Death Eater behind my bloody back?”

“Ron—“ Harry started, but before he could say anything more, Hermione raised her wand. She pointed it directly at Ron. 

“Don’t you dare take that train of thought any further, Ronald,” she said. “Or are you going to start spitting hatefully at me, too?”

He hesitated. Beside him, Harry actually looked surprised. Ron wavered, his wand hand shaking. “Falmouth is Malfoy’s team, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“So this started before.”

“I ended it with you before anything started.”

“And the crying?” he asked, dropping his wand arm. Hermione dropped hers as well. 

“Not about either of you,” she said.

He clenched his jaw and swallowed. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. For _years_ you’ve refused to listen to me about Draco. You ignored every good thing he ever did for us, every last one. Even when he saved your own family,” she said. “Even when he saved me.”

“‘Mione—“

“I’m doing this, Ron,” she said. “I’m going to try this out with Draco, wherever it leads. I need you to stop calling him a Death Eater every time you open your mouth, or we’re going to have a big problem.”

“You broke up with me _yesterday,_ ” Ron said, frowning. Hermione sighed. The argument would get circular and repetitive if she didn’t stop him soon. “You really expect me to believe this just happened _today?”_

Hermione shrugged. She took Draco’s hand again. “Believe it, don’t believe it. Merlin knows I’ve never been able to convince you of anything once you’ve made your mind up anyway.”

***

_ARE YOU ALIVE?_

_Hermione sent the message and put the coin in her pocket. Voldemort had fallen. Harry was alive. The aftermath of the war, mourning the fallen, had used up so much of her emotional energy. It had been hours. She hadn’t seen any of the Malfoys in the crowd._

_His tip had likely saved the Weasley family. They’d all changed their hair. Blondes, browns, whites, greys. Anything but their signature red. Watching them all remove the glamour from their appearance when all was said and done was almost funny. Ginny tried to lighten everyone’s mood by insisting she liked being a blonde, actually, and was considering keeping it. Fred, battered from a near-miss involving a castle wall caving in on top of them, turned his own hair purple._

_“I’m lucky to be here, mum,” Fred said._

_“The wall was so heavy it bruised his hair,” George said._

_“That’s not funny,” Molly insisted. Hermione fought back tears as she watched her cling tightly to her boys. Even Percy let her smother him with kisses._

_Her pocket warmed. She’d never moved so fast._

_I’M HERE._

_She let out a breath and tapped her wand against the coin and sent I’M GLAD._

_The return message broke her heart. YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE._

***

Hermione pressed her hands into her temples, squeezing her eyes shut and scowling. “I’m dying,” she muttered.

“You are not,” the older Hermione said. 

“Better not be,” Draco grumbled beside her. He leveled glare at the older Hermione. “How long before you go?”

“Ten o’clock, or just about,” she said. She cast a perfect wandless _tempus_ charm and showed there were roughly five minutes to go. “I really hope you pulled this off, Malfoy.”

“It’s Malfoy now?” he asked, raising a brow. “You don’t call me Malfoy, Old Granger.”

“Yes I do,” she grinned. “But only sometimes.”

“And if this didn’t work?” Hermione asked wearily. “Should we expect you back?”

“If this didn’t work, Theo Nott will cease to exist,” she said seriously. “My last resort is killing him.”

“Merlin,” Draco muttered, dragging his hand down his face. 

“Hopefully you don’t have to,” Hermione said. “We had a good time at lunch. Maybe we’ve done enough.”

“Hope that you have,” the older Hermione said. She stepped toward them, and Hermione’s pounding headache intensified to a shattering pain. She whimpered, raising a hand to urge her to stop. 

“Don’t come closer,” she said, and Draco squeezed her to his side. Her doppelgänger backed away, all the way into the corner of the room. Hermione sobbed, the pain unbearable. 

“ _Merlin,_ ” Draco said, his tone pure worry.

“I’ll be gone in minutes,” her doppelgänger said, sounding panicked herself. She was staring at Hermione with wide eyes. Draco glanced down at her. He brought fingers to her face and they came away bloody. She had a nosebleed. 

“Fuck,” he said. “How much longer? You can’t stay—“

“A minute, at most,” she said.

“And what if you leaving causes some sort of effect?” he snapped at her. “If you kill her on your way out I’ll never forgive you.”

“ _Draco—_ “ she gasped, and then she disappeared.

***

_Ron asked her to be his girlfriend as soon as things had settled and she said yes, though that night she’d lain awake and worried it was a bad idea. They’d been friends for so long. This could ruin everything. And she was already sure that he was far more invested than she was in the whole idea. She was fond of him, true, but they were capable of such strong disagreement sometimes, and when it came to her faith in Draco Malfoy, they were at such biting odds that they would get into days-long conflicts about it. She wondered if she was just dooming herself to lose him entirely by trying this if it had a chance of failing. Sleep eluded her. Her mind was churning too much to try._

_After a while, she dug the coin out and tapped it. YOU AWAKE?_

_She gave it a few minutes but didn’t get a response. It was two in the morning, she wasn’t sure what she’d expected. She left the coin on her nightstand next to her wand and turned out the light._

_Then, as she was staring at the ceiling in the dark, she saw a quick glow out of the corner of her eye. She reached over and picked up the coin._

_ALWAYS. WHAT’S UP?_

_She smiled. MEET ME?_

_His response was lightning fast. WHERE?_

_She smirked. Where indeed? GOOD QUESTION._

_WHERE ARE YOU NOW?_

_She laughed to herself. MY ROOM AT HARRY’S._

_She had to fight from laughing even harder when he suggested, SNEAK ME IN?_

_And then she thought, why not? Harry had admitted he had been a staunch ally in the war. It wouldn’t be the worst thing. And she didn’t intend on getting caught, anyway. GRIMMAULD PLACE, LONDON. OUTSIDE._

_She went carefully outside. A moment later she heard the pop of apparition, and she turned toward the sound. Draco gave her a soft smile. “Are we friends now, Granger?”_

_“We’ve been friends, Malfoy,” she replied. Then she offered him her hand. “Keep quiet, especially on the stairs.”_

***

“Hermione? Hermione, please wake up.”

Draco’s hands were warm. One was on her face, gently tapping her cheek. The other was on her back. He had her cradled in his arms. She opened her eyes slowly to find that he was blinking back tears, his face pale and wracked with worry. As her vision focused on him, he let out a thankful laugh and kissed her forehead.

“She’s gone?” Hermione asked, and he nodded. He held her close.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he muttered into her hair. “She vanished and you dropped like a rag doll, I didn’t know what to do—“

“I don’t remember,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay.”

“No, I mean I don’t _remember_ ,” she said, and then she smiled broadly at him. “The memories, Draco. They’re gone.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide, scanning her face for a moment. Then he grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her. 

***

_“Shhhh,” she hushed him as he celebrated another victory over her in exploding snap, and he chuckled. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her._

_“You silenced the room, Granger.”_

_“I know, but still!” she said. “It’s four in the morning, no one should be this loud at four in the morning.”_

_“It’s not my fault you’re so bad at this game,” he said, and he reset the deck._

_“You keep distracting me,” she said. “Stop being so distracting.”_

_He looked at her without responding, simply watching her for a second as she yawned over the deck of cards. She was sagging now, exhaustion finally beating the churning of her mind. And he was good company. “You’re tired. Maybe I should go.”_

_“Probably a good idea,” she said. “Merlin help you if Harry finds you here when he wakes up.”_

_“Or Weasley,” he added. Hermione sighed. He raised a brow. “He still hates my guts.”_

_“I don’t know why,” she said apologetically. “You saved his whole family. And me. And Harry. And me again. Repeatedly. He’s being an arse.”_

_“You’re dating that arse,” he muttered._

_“Yeah, I am,” she replied. She opened her mouth to say more, but then thought better of it. She considered Malfoy a friend now, but she didn’t think talking to him about Ron would be productive. She shook her head and then stood. “Come on, let’s get you out of Harry’s house.”_

***

Draco slipped his hands under her shirt and slid it up, up, up to cup her breast in one palm while the other kept pushing, pulling the shirt over her head and throwing it to the floor. Hermione tugged at his shirt in return, yanking it up and over his head, making him laugh joyously as she pushed him backward onto the mattress.

“You’re not concerned this is too fast?” he asked, and she laughed brightly, leaning down and kissing him as his hands rounded her back to the clasp of her bra.

“I may not remember the specifics anymore but I still remember that this works out,” she said, sliding her hands along his chest. She felt the bra come loose as he got the clasp unhooked. His hands dragged the straps down her arms. As he tossed the bra aside and slid his hands back along her skin, she added, “Besides. You’ve been good for me for so long.”

“Yeah?” he asked, pulling her down for a kiss with one hand. With the other, he pushed at her shorts. She lifted her hips to help him get them off and then dragged at his waistband. He pushed his pajama bottoms away, kicking them off, and then Hermione threw a leg over him and straddled his waist. 

“You saved me,” she said. She bent down to kiss him. His hands came up again to meet her, one to her breast and the other into her hair. He slipped his tongue into her mouth as she met his lips with hers. She pulled back and smiled. “Multiple times.”

“You saved me, too,” he said. “The day you gave me that coin. And every time you used it after.”

“Draco,” she breathed against him. He slipped a hand between them, pressing his fingers to her core. She gasped and then smiled, grinding against his hand. Looking down at him as she moved, she found his gaze locked upon her, years of desire for her behind those stormy grey irises. Her heart pounded in her chest as he carried her closer and closer to climax, watching her as her breath shallowed and her chest flushed pink.

She cried out as Draco pushed her over the edge. He smiled up at her as she leaned down over him, shuddering against his hand. He pulled her all the way down, sliding his tongue between her lips. He rolled them, positioning himself above her, and kissed her deeply. 

“Since fourth year?” Hermione asked, and he huffed a happy little laugh.

“Since fourth year,” he said. He kissed her under the ear. “The yule ball. You were breathtaking.”

He kissed her shoulder, and then her collarbone, and then Hermione slid her hand between them and gripped him in her fingers. He rumbled softly against her skin, and she pumped him a few times before guiding him to her entrance. 

“Please,” she breathed, and that was all he needed. She let out a small moan as he filled her, the low tone of his voice as he murmured her name a thrill in itself. She let her legs drop, giving him the access he needed to drive into her fully, and soon they had a rhythm together. She slid her hands along his body, gripping him by the rear as he thrust into her again and again.

Her second climax slammed into her all at once, a heady wave crashing against a shore. Draco captured her lips with his as she crested, claiming her cry of pleasure as he dragged it out of her. And then he followed her with a groan, tearing his mouth from hers to gasp, ragged breaths hot against her skin.

He dropped his head to her shoulder and breathed her name like a prayer. She turned her head and kissed him, burying her fingers into his hair. They came apart only to settle again on their sides, tangling themselves together in an embrace of limbs. 

Draco reached sideways blindly, feeling along his nightstand until he found his wand. He cast a series of spells both contraceptive and cleansing. Then he tossed his wand unceremoniously behind him. Hermione laughed happily as she heard it clatter against the floor and roll. 

He returned his attention to her and there it stayed until they fell asleep.

***

_“Oh, bloody brilliant,” Ron grumbled. They were on the Hogwarts Express, roughly halfway to Hogwarts, and lounging in a car with Luna, Neville, Harry, and Ginny. Ron and Neville were playing Wizard’s Chess on the little train table, while Ginny and Harry were trying halfheartedly not to be disgustingly adorable the whole way to school. Luna had her nose in a Quibbler, the fingers of one hand laced with Neville’s. Hermione was tucked across from Luna in the corner by the window with a book in her lap and looked up to see what he was complaining about._

_Malfoy was at the door. He rapped on it once and slid it open a little. He looked right at Hermione._

_“Can I steal you for a minute, Granger?”_

_“No you bloody well can not,” Ron replied, and Hermione elbowed him. Harry glanced her way and rolled his eyes._

_“Yes he can,” Hermione said, and she marked her spot in her book and placed it on her seat. “I’ll be right back.”_

_Ron refused to move his knees, forcing her to put her hand on his shoulder and climb over his legs to get out of the corner seat. As she did so, he muttered to her, “Why bother?”_

_“He’s my friend, Ron,” she replied, irritably, and then louder so the rest of the car could hear. “I’ll be right back.”_

_Draco gave her a look when she stepped out of the car, but said nothing, gesturing for her to follow along the corridor. “Get tea with me.”_

_“Okay,” she said. Then, feeling judged, she added, “He’s only a git when you’re around.”_

_“That he’s a git to you at all is the problem,” Draco replied in a low mutter. Hermione sighed and followed him to the buffet car. Ernie MacMillan and Lisa Turpin sat at one table, seemingly quite taken with one another. Ernie raised an eyebrow when he saw them come in together, but she and Draco both simply gave him general gestures of greeting and he turned his attention back to Lisa._

_They sat for a cup of tea, chatting amiably about the upcoming school year, wondering what it would be like to be sequestered away with the rest of the eighth years instead of in separate houses. He thought he’d be hexed in his pajamas within a week of arriving; she insisted no such thing would happen._

_“I should get back,” she said, as she leaned back in the chair. Her teacup had been empty for at least fifteen minutes._

_“Before Weasley comes and murders me, yeah,” he replied. “I’ll walk you back?”_

_“Sure,” she said. As she slid the door to the compartment open, Ron glared at Draco._

_“Minutes are awfully long in your world, Malfoy,” he grumbled, and Hermione rolled her eyes. Draco just snorted and shook his head._

_“Later, Granger,” he said, and Hermione gave him a wave before she turned and crossed her arms. The compartment door closed behind her._

_“I’m not climbing over you again, Ronald. Move your legs.”_

_***_

Someone was knocking on Draco’s door.

Hermione frowned, blinking sleepily at the doors. “Who could that be?”

“No idea. Old Granger’s gone,” Draco grumbled, lifting his head from the pillow. He rolled away from her, the absence of his warmth against her back making her grumble. She pulled the bedding up around her chin and watched blearily as he pulled on his pajama bottoms and went to see who it was.

He pulled it open and Hermione heard Theo Nott’s cheery voice. “Draco! Pans and Blaise and I are off to Hogsmeade today, if you wanted to join us.”

“Oh,” Draco blinked back at him with surprise. “Yeah, sure, I just—“

“Fifteen minutes enough? You can bring Granger if you like,” he said, and then Hermione saw him peer into the room between the wood of the door and Draco’s shoulder. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Hi,” she said. Draco chuckled and let the door swing open a little more. 

“Fifteen okay?” Theo asked, and Draco looked to Hermione. She nodded. Theo exclaimed cheerfully. “Fifteen it is! We’ll meet at the stairs.”

“Sounds good,” Draco said, and then he closed the door and turned to Hermione with a smile. “It’s working.”

“Good,” she smiled back. “I like you alive.”

“Me too,” he said, and then he moved to his dresser. Hermione slid out from under the covers and grabbed his shirt from the floor where it had landed the night before, pulling it and her shorts on. She scooped up her bra and knickers and folded them up small, tucking them under her arm. 

“See you in fifteen,” she said, and she pulled him down for a slow, sweet kiss before heading into the corridor. She made her way quickly to her own door.

Harry’s opened as she passed, and a very tousled pajama-clad Ginny Weasley stepped out. She closed the door behind her and turned. As she saw Hermione, her eyebrows shot up and her mouth dropped into a little _oh_ of surprise. Hermione grinned. “Morning.”

“Hi, Hermione,” she said, and then she dropped her voice and leaned forward. “Are those your knickers?”

“Shhh,” Hermione turned red. “Yes.”

“I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to realize you were in love with him,” Ginny said with a knowing smile. “Merlin only knows why you ever said yes to Ron in the first place. Harry and I were so—“

“What?” Hermione was dumbfounded. 

“You and Malfoy,” Ginny said. “The two of you have been mad for each other for ages. It’s like you were the only one who couldn’t see it.”

“I… I don’t think that’s how that went,” Hermione said, feeling suddenly like she needed to take a day and write down her recollection of every interaction she’d ever had with Draco in order to analyze them properly. Ginny just gave her another knowing look and shook her head. “I need to get ready, we’re going to Hogsmeade.”

“So are we,” Ginny grinned. “Where do you think I’m going? We should get lunch together.”

“We’re going with some of the other Slytherins,” Hermione added, and Ginny shrugged.

“So we get a big table.”

***

_“Hey,” Malfoy appeared at the end of the shelf nearest her favorite chair in the library. She looked up from her book and smiled at him._

_“Hi! How’d it go?”_

_“You’re looking at a fully acquitted Death Eater,” he grinned at her. “Pretty sure it’s entirely thanks to you. You saved my skin.”_

_“It’s only fair. You saved mine,” she said, getting up and marking her spot in the book. She wrapped her arms around his middle and gave him a tight hug. “I’m really happy for you, Draco.”_

_He’d wrapped his arms around her back and dropped his face into her hair, letting her linger against his chest. After a moment he said very softly, “I don’t know why you trusted me that day. I’m glad you did.”_

_“I saw it on your face,” she said, pulling back and looking up at him. “I like to think I’m pretty good at reading you.”_

_“I knew you were my best shot,” he said. His eyes locked onto hers for a moment, and then he grinned at her and pulled entirely away. “Thanks, Granger.”_

***

She sat beside Draco at the biggest table in the Three Broomsticks with Pansy, Blaise, Theo, Harry, Ginny, Luna, Neville, Dean, and Seamus. To her left, Draco, Theo, Ginny, and Harry were discussing the Slytherin-Gryffindor game; to her right, the others were chatting about an upcoming Weird Sisters concert they all had tickets to attend. 

There was a loud bout of laughter as Ginny described, with trademark Weasley family humor and enthusiasm, the bludger hit to the side of her head and her subsequent fall. Hermione beamed as she watched everyone getting along so well.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to Draco, sliding her chair away from the table and turning to approach the bar for a new bottle of butterbeer. Madam Rosmerta smiled at her. 

“Interesting blend of faces at your table,” she said.

“Yeah,” Hermione agreed. “It’s a miracle.”

“It’s how it should be,” she replied. “Friendships like that will keep the old rifts from reforming.”

“I hope you’re right,” she grinned. She took her butterbeer bottle in hand. Before she could turn and return to the table, she felt her pocket warm. With a smile, she slipped her hand in and pulled out the well-worn coin. 

HELLO, BEAUTIFUL.

Her smile grew and she put her butterbeer back on the counter for a moment. She tapped the coin. HOW’D YOU KNOW I HAD IT?

She glanced over at the table to see Draco’s head bent down over his lap. He had the coin under the table, surreptitiously tapping out his reply. Hers warmed in her hand. LUCKY GUESS.

She tapped hers again. LUCKY COIN.

Hers warmed in her hand again a moment later, and she glanced down to see it said, THAT’S WHY I ALWAYS HAVE MINE.

***

LONDON, 2025

Hermione crashed into the kitchen island, knocking a wine glass from the counter and sending broken glass flying. She ignored it; the shooting pain behind her eyes was too much. Her vision went white and she cried out, dropping into a crouch. Tears came unbidden as her brain churned, memories shifting, some vanishing, others appearing in their place. It happened so fast. Years and years of memories replaced with new ones. Her mind could barely handle the load.

Swift footsteps came from the next room. Warm hands landed on her shoulders, and after a moment a second, softer set of footsteps followed. 

“Mum?” It was a sweet voice, young and feminine. “Is she okay?”

“I’m checking, love. Clean up this glass, would you please?” Draco’s voice. Hermione whimpered as he brought gentle fingers under her chin and tipped her face up. She blinked at him, taking in his face. The lines at the corners of his eyes. The glasses he wore to read, still perched on his fine nose. She let out a breath and beamed at him, throwing her arms around his neck and dragging him into an awkward, kneeling hug.

“Thank Merlin,” she breathed against his neck.

He chuckled against her. “Hey there, Old Granger.”

“It worked,” she said. “It fucking worked.”

“Good thing,” he laughed, and then he helped her up. She took in the sight of their youngest child, a little blonde wisp of a girl they’d named Lyra. Short for her age and reedy like her older sister, she was a second year Ravenclaw. Hermione blinked at her, the memories of their new and altered life still settling into place. Draco pulled her into a hug. “Do you remember?”

“It’s coming,” she said softly. Then she grinned. “We had more time. We had a third.”

“We did indeed,” he kissed her. “She’s the best of us. Our little Lyra.”

“Ugh, dad, don’t be so mushy,” Lyra piped up. She’d levitated all the broken glass up onto the counter. Hermione noted that she was left-handed, just like her father. She leaned against Draco and watched her repair the glass, all the shattered pieces coming together in a perfect example of what _reparo_ could do when cast properly. 

“Thanks, love. Good work,” Draco said, and Hermione’s heart skipped a beat when Lyra turned and beamed at them both, her beautiful grey eyes lighting up. Then her face turned and she chewed at her lip.

“I’ve got a herbology essay to write. Sixteen inches! Can you believe Professor Longbottom assigned this over Christmas?”

Hermione laughed. “I’m sure you’ll turn in twenty anyway.”

“Just like your mum,” Draco said, giving Hermione a squeeze around the shoulders. As Lyra breezed out of the kitchen, he turned to her and kissed her properly. 

“She looks just like you,” she breathed. Her memories were still rearranging themselves. He kissed her again. 

“My good looks, your incredible mind,” he said. “And her personality is all you.”

“Where are the other two?”

“Playing exploding snap in the sitting room,” he said. With one more kiss, he slipped his fingers between hers. “Come and see.”

“Wait,” Hermione pulled on his hand, tugging him to her. She slid her other hand into the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled herself up to kiss him. As they broke apart, she breathed, “It worked.”

“You saved me,” he said. Then he beamed at her. “You always save me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to my incredible beta, [ginnysocks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnysocks)!


End file.
